Hi, it’s Halyn. A current UX designer. As remote work has become the norm these days, it’s important to have efficient meetings within time constraints, especially when colleagues are located in different time zones. After trying out some methods myself, I have outlined the following process and split it into 3 parts: preparation, during the meeting, and ending the meeting.
PART.I Preparation
(1) Providing an agenda to the participants
This can be brief, outlining the topics to be discussed, and if there are any materials to be reviewed beforehand, make sure to send them to the attendees. For example:
Hello everyone, tomorrow we’ll mainly be discussing whether to launch feature A in the first stage of our product. Here are some key discussion points:
- The status of feature A implementation in other competitors
- Challenges of implementing feature A
- Three possible interfaces proposed by the design team for feature A
- Challenges faced by the development team (if they have any additional points to add, please do so during the meeting).
(2) Memo to Yourself
List the questions you want to ask (can be categorised by topic or person to ask), categorise the questions beforehand and indicate who might be able to answer them. This can help maintain high-quality meetings, for example:
- What is the time required for each of the three design proposals? (Product)
- Does the second design require the use of external tools? Or can our system support it? (Development)
- Confirm the trigger points of the existing API in each design proposal (Development/Design)
PART.II During the Meeting
(1) Explain Today’s Agenda
When explaining the agenda and topics to be discussed, it is helpful to inform everyone whether they should wait until the end of a segment to ask questions or if they can ask and discuss at any time. This helps to manage the time of the meeting.
(2) Clearly Describe the Situation
nitiating a meeting always involves solving a problem together, but everyone’s understanding of the project may vary. Therefore, it is important to explain the context clearly. This is especially important if there are people present who are not familiar with the topic. Here is another example:
“The German team is discussing a new major client who has indicated that they cannot use our product without feature A. However, feature A will take a year to develop. Therefore, the design team will be presenting three alternative solutions that may achieve a similar goal with fewer resources. We need everyone’s input to determine which solution is most feasible.”
Other ways to prepare for the discussion include:
- Who encountered the difficulties and what difficulties they encountered
- Supporting materials (such as emails, notes, or interviews)
- Their requests and our analysis (from the UX perspective, we may not directly tell the team “what the original request was”, but rather analyse user needs. For example, the client may say they want a dashboard, but through interviews, we found out that their needs are “to have a way to confirm unfinished tasks.”)
- What we have done so far (e.g., the product team asked the client manager whether other clients have made similar requests).
(3) Visualise the Data
It can often be difficult for participants to understand the content immediately, so the design team usually visualises the data (not necessarily pretty, but logically). Our visualisation doesn’t necessarily have to be in the form of a table, but clearly lists which type of user, at what time, does what action, and triggers what event.
(4) Control the Process
If the other person is off-topic, or if the topic is too deep and not necessary for every participant to understand, it is important to reserve the topic for other meetings. Usually, I would tell the participants: “We need a better time slot to discuss this thoroughly. I’ll take note of it, and we’ll arrange another time and invite the product team to join us.”
PART.III Ending the Meeting
(1) Leave with a Conclusion
Even if some meetings cannot make a decision immediately, it is still possible to reach some degree of conclusion and tell everyone what the next steps are, for instance, “Plan B looks like the most feasible for the design and development team. We need to discuss further with the product team next, and we will inform everyone after we get the answer.”
Even if there is no clear direction, identifying the problem clearly is also a kind of conclusion. The important thing is to confirm what to do next, for example, “We cannot reach a consensus on the overall direction this time, but the development team will arrange a meeting after confirming whether the new API can be used.”
(2) Set the Next Meeting Time
If there is no designated time, people may forget about the meeting due to the number of ongoing tasks. Therefore, even for less urgent topics, it is still important to set a tentative time, with some flexibility to ensure that your colleagues are aware of the next steps. This can help keep everyone on the same page and avoid scheduling conflicts.
(3) Follow-up Message
Thank everyone for their participation via Slack or email, and summarise the above items (conclusion, next steps, next meeting time) again for the attendees.
These tips are what I learned from my past experience. I would like to thank everyone who worked with me and gave me advice. In fact, some of the tips listed above were suggested by my manager or colleagues. I believe it’s a great way to share these ideas and help people struggling with running a virtual meeting, especially from a designer’s perspective. I hope you enjoy this article!