20-Person Online Meeting That Works

Here is a short summary of how we do our daily meetings in a 100% remote company of 20 people.

The meeting

We meet online every day at the same time. There are two questions followed by free discussion.

Question 1. What are the moods in the projects?

This works as a project barometer. People in good moods = the project is doing great. Frustrated people = watch out, big risk ahead!

Believe it or… try it yourself, but when asked about moods people will always talk about the things that pose risks to the project.

Random question, not job – related

This is the fun part. The question changes every day and can be about just anything – movies, literature, a favourite toy, holidays or date of your dreams.

This helps us get to know each other, make connections and build relations, which is especially important when not collocated.

The word ‘bakłażan’ (‘eggplant’ in Polish) is the signal for free discussion to start. This is the time to follow up on the most interesting stories or simply share some random thoughts.

The organizer

The meetings are based on the concept of self-organizing teams. Every week another person volunteers to be the *Chrum* master. She makes up the questions, starts the meeting and kicks off the free discussion. The participants speak in random order, which works surprisingly well.

The tools

Audio and video are a must. It’s like having a cup of coffee in the kitchen. You want to see each others’ faces and gestures.

Here is what we use:

• BigBlueButton for video – it’s free, open source and the quality is really great.

• TeamSpeak for audio – a ‘push-to-talk’ solution, works really well for 20 people, as it eliminates background noise from those not speaking.