3. Adequate response time and deadlines
Let other people know when you are expecting to hear back on the deliverables. While discussing the project, try to be as realistic as possible and keep reasonable expectations from the team. Make sure you give enough time for them to complete and deliver on your expectations. Deadlines are just compulsory, no matter what model of communication you use. Ensure everyone understands that they have a time limit to complete and deliver; they cannot be working forever on a task. See some best practices for managing remote teams. At zipBoard, we generally have a turn around time of 24 hrs.
4. Next set of actions
This is very important to make a note of and delegate to team members. The next set of actions gives accountability to your team members. Every individual knows what tasks they are supposed to work on. It helps identify the dependability of every team member and how their work will affect others’ work.
Tips – Make sure you discuss who will be doing what. Make a numbered list of deliverables and delegate the tasks as suits. Confirm everyone understands their responsibilities and check if there is any doubt or question.
5. Record calls or Take notes meetings
While discussing projects on live calls recording the call or even better, take notes. It will be helpful when you are working. You can refer back to call notes and calls and do things as was discussed and not the other way round. Additionally, this process in itself creates internal process documents or content that can be used in the future. In the form of training material, article for Blogspot, explainer videos, etc. If someone missed the meeting, they could go through the recording and notes and be in sync even when they were not present.
Tips – Make someone responsible in the team take notes and ask others to add to it if anything is missed. Share the notes doc with the team before the meeting.
Maintain only one doc for everyday sync up call and add details with the date as headers. By doing so, you can even see what was discussed the previous day, format the notes well using sub-headers, bullets, and a section for deliverables. In deliverables, add the name of the person accountable for that task.
Notes are helpful as one can quickly skim through the vital point or do a quick search using related keywords. Whereas if the meeting is of long durations, then you will have to listen through the whole recording, even if you just want details of something particular.