How do you manage to eliminate the number of video/voice calls when working remotely?

Question

Do you have a feeling you're constantly on video/voice calls? How do you eliminate the ones that are unnecessary?

Pieter Limburg · Accepted Answer

Decide on what should be a call and what you can do on Slack.

A one-on-one with a team-member needs to be a call, just like a pitch to a potential new client. As long as you have an agenda for the call, it will be a good investment.

Slack works great for chit-chat and quick questions. Sometimes we decide to "takte this off-line" and out of a meeting, and sometimes I jump into a heated Slack conversation and will suggest a quick huddle on a video-call. It depends!

If you're having lots of ad-hoc video calls, you might need to consider a weekly meeting to address topics that are coming up a lot. It helps people to think things through ahead of time and shortens the time spent on the topic.

Brittany Salas · Answer

Call me old school but I find that people think more before calling someone than they do before sending an email. I encourage calls and am slowly trying to eliminate messaging apps.

Calendly works great for scheduling timed b2b meetings during specific windows.

Fabian Maume · Answer

I use Slack as main mean of communication. I use Calendly to schedule meeting when necessary. My Calendly is setup with 5 hours lead time and 1 hour cool down between meeting.

Pēteris Caune · Answer

- "Hello, I'm ABC from sales at XYZ, I want to discuss something, let's jump on a call!"
- report spam and move on

For work stuff, have scheduled, regular meetings. For me it's 1h call every other day.

Ilia Pikulev · Answer

You need to make the meetings timed - we do that and that is a very good idea. Firstly, that always lasts the time you've planned. Secondly, no one spends the meeting on useless conversations if everyone knows that there is a limited time.
Also, always make the agenda before the meeting and just stick to it :)

To make it legit within your team/company, you can talk to your boss and ask if they are happy to pay for just meetings as each 1-hour long meeting of 10 people with the rate let's say $40/hour would cost them $400 every day! Make it two hours and that's $800 already!!!

I know, you are talking about the one-to-one calls probably, but the principle is the same :)

Kira Leigh · Answer

The easy answer is hitting-home what the actual meaning of a meeting is. If the goal of a meeting is not incredibly obvious and pinned-down [itinerary], of course it's going to feel like some/many [?] meetings and video/voice calls are unnecessary.

Easy mode: don't take/make meetings unless they move the needle in a meaningful way. What 'meaningful' looks like is up to the individual/organization.

Gotta' have 'meaningful' though.

If you don't have the free-reign to sort of dictate your own meeting schedule, and you just keep getting ones that don't feel 'meaningful', it may be time to talk to leadership.

Answer

I made a video on it recently ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yayOBbtz5rM ) and this simple, obvious thing seems to work the best.

I do very little meetings / calls, mostly "social" ones like getting to know a new client etc.

How do you manage to eliminate the number of video/voice calls when working remotely?

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