Effective team meetings: How to make your remote syncs more productive

Many times, team meetings are a chance to share quick updates on projects — our product marketing team, for example, has a call twice a week to sync on a wide range of topics. But once everyone started working remotely, they quickly realized that a different approach was needed to make their team meetings more productive. Read on to learn how they use the video presentation tool, Prezi Video, to hold more effective team meetings, and how you can do the same for your own team syncs.

Using Prezi Video for a more clearly defined structure 

With three product marketing team members each sharing their own agenda items during their check-in meetings, it was clear early on that a traditional meeting structure wasn’t going to work. When working remotely, the primary way people stay connected is through their laptop cameras; by sending an agenda in a separate doc, everyone’s eyes will be drawn away from the face-to-face conversation as they repeatedly check the list. 

The product marketing team decided to use Prezi Video instead. Now when they meet, each person has their agenda items on the screen next to their faces, so they can still communicate directly with each other without losing track of the next topic. 

“Prezi Video updates have helped me better visualize what my team is working on and delegate more effectively — all while increasing the level of trust and transparency among my team,” says Patricia Vidal, Prezi’s Director of Product Marketing. “I can see everyone’s topics of discussion beside them right there on screen. This process helps quickly identify topic trends among the team that need further discussion, and more importantly, such clear visualization helps me stay updated and help them achieve what they are working towards.”

“Having a list of projects and the possibility to share visual assets right next to me enables me to really interact with what I’m showing,” adds Stefan Blaschke, a Product Marketing Manager at Prezi. “This makes our team meetings very productive and everyone is on the same page quickly.” 

Going beyond status updates

Many teams meetings end up being a round-robin of status updates, with one person sharing what they’re working on and then quickly moving on to the next person. But if you’re primarily sharing updates, then you can have more effective team meetings by meeting asynchronously instead. The product marketing team wanted to make their live meetings more impactful, so now they dedicate their time to ask for input on projects, address outstanding questions, discuss learnings, train up on new software, and stay aligned on campaigns. 

“Prezi Video has helped our team gain clarity into what we are all working on quickly and efficiently. We get visual context to what each team member is speaking to, and we actually gain an easy way to collaborate, ideate, and cross-pollinate ideas across our team with one simple product,” says Channing Adler, a Product Marketing Manager at Prezi. 

When there’s something to discuss, each product marketing manager will build their content in Prezi Video, allowing them to easily zoom in to a specific topic and highlight charts, callouts, visuals, and more.  
Use Prezi Video to hold more effective team meetings and make them feel organized and substantial without losing the face-to-face connection. Try starting with the same project status update video template that our product marketing team used, and customize it to fit your needs.