Making remote software team meetings fun

Remote teams spread out over multiple locations around the globe and speaking multiple different languages as their first are the norm these days for most software companies. This is a great trend, as it opens up the availability of software talent to software projects and makes hiring great software developers a much easier task for companies. But as with anything else in this world, those great things come with some downsides. One of the biggest downside is the lack of interaction between team members. Without that interaction the essential element of any good software team: “gelling”, doesn’t happen. We’ve written in the past about how to make the remote team gel so it’s worth a look up if you haven’t read it. Today, we’ll drill down to one aspect of remote team interaction that needs special attention: team meetings.

Team meetings are one of the holy grails for a software project to perform well. It’s a meetup of the team to discuss the project, where they are and where they are going. It essentially setups up the direction of the team at regular intervals. Hence it’s very important to get the meeting right. However, if the meeting is too formal, then it becomes a painful waste of time, where people just sit through boring proceedings and not really discuss the issues at hand in an open way. And the only way you can make that happen is if make the team meeting a relaxed and fun event that people actually like attending. As you can imagine, remote teams pose a difficult challenge to this premise of a “fun” team meeting. We been running remote teams for the past 18 years as a software development agency that helps companies build software products so we have a few tips and tricks to solve this problem. And in today’s post I want to share them with you.

Fun introductions and catch up games

By introducing a short game over the remote call you can easily “break the ice” for new members of a team or even reinvigorate an old team that has been working away from each other too long.

A classic in this remote meeting games is called the "what do you really know" game. This is where you (as the team lead/ project manager) begin a meeting by asking the participants to share something that they know really well. This could be anything from baking to e-bikes. The idea is to leverage people's expertise and build connection and trust right at the beginning of the meeting. You then ask questions about their areas of expertise, which led to interesting conversations.

There are many other virtual games that you can run on the meetings, a quick google search with get you a whole bunch of them.

Running the meeting in the radio host mode

In this this, you make everyone turn off their video! By turning off the video, you've shifted the norm from your team, which spikes the level of fun and engagement in the group. Then you ask someone to assume they are a radio host and then ask others questions like a radio talk show. Here’s an example:

Host: “So, Max, I read on the newspaper that your feature of calculating optimal rates in the software is going really well, tell us something about what you are doing right now?”

You could spice it up a bit to create the feel of a political leader interview, here’s an example:

Host: “But many people have protested that the it doesn’t do the calculation as you promised, is that true?”

There are many variations on this theme and after some practice you’ll find that this is a unique way running the meeting which discusses serious issues in a fun and engaging way. Best of both worlds!

Show and tell

This is modelled after the show and tell things we used to do in elementary school. On the fun introductions and break the ice mode you could ask the participants to find a specific item in their house and bring it back to the meeting. This could be anything from a childhood photo to a favorite book. This is a great way to build connection and get to know each other better.

And on the serious work side, you could ask team members to show the feature they are working on, and describe it in the elementary school “show and tell” mode.

Information sharing via Ice breaker sessions

Icebreakers are warm-up activities that help make virtual meetings exciting and engaging. They require little to no preparation, and they have a lot of potential when done right. Good icebreakers help mitigate the feeling of being a bunch of strangers hanging out in a room together. They have people acknowledge each other's existence, which is just enough to get people excited. Even the few minutes invested in an icebreaker might make people laugh, make them open up to dialogue, and even help them step out of their comfort zone.

One really good ice breaker session is the highs and lows. It’s an awesome way to help people empathize with their peers. You basically ask everyone to share their successes with tasks assigned “highs” and failures “lows”. The goal is to make it easy for everyone to share where they failed without feeling bad or trying to hide such failures. This activity will encourage people to engage in meaningful dialogue with their peers, and most importantly, it enables teammates to provide their colleagues with the support where they failed and needed congratulations on their successes. As a result, this helps create a sense of empathy among team members and promotes a culture of support. Plus, this exercise encourages the exchange of valuable information between people.

So that’s it for now, our top tips for making your next team meeting fun!