How to run effective virtual team huddles [+ideas]

If you work remotely, you know that maintaining great communication and team cohesion can be a challenge. 

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But you also know that these are essential for employee engagement. Maybe you’re already spending time on virtual team building activities and implementing an employee engagement solution, but you’re still looking for ways to make your remote employees feel connected.

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That’s where virtual team huddles can come in. 

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What is a virtual huddle?

A virtual team huddle is a regular, short meeting that everyone in a remote team attends to share their current work. It often happens daily and shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. 

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Huddles are important because they provide an opportunity for team building. When you work remotely, it’s hard to maintain an overview of what everyone’s working on and still have enough time for social interaction. 

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A team huddle meeting can solve that. It lets your team sync priorities, address blockers, and share what they’re up to–whether that’s work-related or not.

How to run effective virtual team huddles

The easiest way to plan your team huddle is to decide what you want to accomplish first. Whether it's getting everyone on the same page or improving well-being, structure and content will change based on this goal!

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Here are some best practices for running a daily huddle with remote teams:

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• Have an agenda. Agendas make it easy for everyone to prepare, to know what the meeting is about, and help you time-box it. Any meeting without a plan is doomed to fail. 
• Keep it short. Daily sessions can either be draining or valuable. Length is one of the key factors that influence that. You want a quick, focused, goal-oriented huddle. 
• Focus on solutions. The role of the facilitator is essential here. Someone needs to be responsible for managing the conversation and making it constructive. When discussing blockers in a group, you want people to walk away feeling empowered.  
• Drive accountability. A team huddle meeting is a way for the team to take responsibility. End your meetings with action points, encourage everyone to speak up, and share the responsibility of moderating. It shouldn’t be all about the manager.

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15-minute huddle ideas

Try these work-oriented daily huddle questions if you need inspiration for your next meeting.

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1. What are your priorities today? Sharing priorities means everyone can track what other team members are doing. 
2. Any news or announcements? If you mainly use a chat tool like Slack for announcements, touching base about these in person can be valuable. 
3. Are you blocked by anything? Catching blockers early can keep your team productive and happy. 
4. How’s our dashboard doing? Dashboards are another way to align priorities and focus. 

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If you want to focus more on team building, here are some ideas you can try:

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1. Team gratitude. Every person on the team shares something they’re grateful for. 
2. Today I learned. This can be a fun, laid-back way to share interests and hobbies. 
3. Weekend plans. Catching up after the weekend can make people feel connected. 
4. Did you know? These can range from work-related tips to rare facts.

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If your daily huddles often take longer than 15 minutes, that’s a sign you should change it up. You could be trying to cover too many topics from too many people or getting sidetracked by in-depth discussions–which shouldn’t happen in a huddle.

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Digital huddle boards can help the team stay focused. You can use them to simplify the prep, keep everyone on the same page, and document what was discussed–which is essential when you work remotely.

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What’s great about working remotely is that you can do all of these asynchronously as well. Some employee engagement platforms have built-in options, and a few Slack apps are built for that.

What should be on a team huddle

Finding the perfect structure for your team might take some experimentation. Focusing too much on one or the other will result in some people not getting value out of it. 

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A good starting point is to spend most of the time focusing on work topics that are relevant for everyone and then a few minutes on something fun. Mix and match the ideas above, including other team-building activities, or play around with icebreakers. 

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How to make a team huddle fun

Like any meeting, team huddles can get boring. If the structure is always the same and your team has repeatedly gone through the “fun” activities, they’ll lose interest. 

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There are some ways to avoid that:

• Use an engagement app that helps you do some activities asynchronously to avoid huddles taking too much time.
• Or use an app like Gomada with a broad range of activities to choose from.
• Add in some variety with team-building kits, or include only activities that need no preparation. 
• Have a separate agenda for different days of the week so that you can switch focus.

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Virtual huddles can transform your team’s interactions and motivation–with the right setup.