🎒 Microlesson

🪞 Reflect

How much could you reduce synchronous meeting time by completing some of the meeting tasks asynchronously? 

💡 Concept

Blended meetings are a combination of asynchronous collaboration, which individuals complete at different times, and a synchronous meeting, where people connect at the same time. Blended meetings typically involve async prework and postwork to take the place of synchronous information sharing. 

This can reduce the length or number of synchronous meetings and can improve the quality of the time you spend together by allowing you to focus on decision-making, innovating, and connecting.

Blended meetings are the best of both worlds. They allow for the rich communication that happens when people meet in real time while maintaining some flexibility for participants, which is a hallmark of async communication. Blended meetings are ideal for most types of remote work tasks and offer a balance of autonomy and relationship-building.

🎬 Take Action

Follow this process for leading a blended meeting: 

• Consider the tasks that need to get done. Which tasks must be done sync and which are possible to do async? Use the Placeless Taxonomy as a guide to identify agenda items that could be accomplished async, like sharing updates by sending an email or video rather than in a meeting on Zoom.

• Create a schedule. Work backwards from when the work needs to be completed. From there, create a schedule to outline the phases of the blended meeting. This way, you ensure there is adequate time to complete prework and postwork before the deadline.

• Share an agenda and expectations. In advance of the sync meeting, share a timeboxed agenda, noting which topics will be discussed and the length of time for each. 

• Assign prework. Assign async prework in advance, making sure to send a reminder before the meeting. Attendees should be able to review everyone else’s contributions before the meeting starts. 

• Plan for some buffer time. Since this might be a new approach, also plan for some time at the beginning of the sync meeting for everyone to finish their prework.

• Document and assign follow-up tasks. Throughout the meeting, document all decisions made and be sure to share them later in an accessible location. Leave time at the end of the conversation to assign async postwork tasks, clarify task ownership, and specify clear deadlines.

✅ Check In

🧠 Keep Learning

Learn more about how to lead effective blended meetings in Leadplaceless. 

🎁 Learn with your team!

Refer our weekly microlessons to your team members to learn as a group! Just follow the instructions in the section below to get started.