How to Make Meetings More Interactive (Even Remotely)

There’s nothing worse than leaving a meeting feeling depleted and unproductive. Have you ever gone to a meeting and thought, ‘This could have been an email’? If so, you’re not alone.

​Many professionals relate to zoning out during a virtual meeting and ending the session without any new insights. Meetings can be an excellent source of inspiration and community building, but only if you make the effort to immerse your participants in the experience.

While you can stick to the traditional presentation deck, you can engage your team far more by including them in the conversation.

Wondering how to make meetings more interactive? Keep reading to learn about meeting participation ideas and engagement tools that will help make your meetings more productive and foster camaraderie among your team.

Why Engagement Drops in Online Meetings

It’s easy to be distracted when working remotely. While there are many contributing  factors, like mental health, life circumstances, and family matters, sometimes, it’s not an external issue, but rather an internal matter.

Over the last few decades,attention spans have gotten shorter, and the traditional meeting style doesn’t necessarily captivate people, especially when there are:

• Less access to non-verbal cues: It’s more challenging to pinpoint non-verbal cues, like eye contact and head nods, on a virtual call. These cues are helpful indicators for understanding the topic at hand.

• Unclear work expectations: Without a clear meeting agenda, attendees may not understand their roles, which can lower participation.  

• Distractions at home or off-site locations: Remote work presents some barriers to focus, such as access to social media and household chores. However, interruptions can also occur in coffee shops due to noise and foot traffic.

There are also drawbacks to one-way communication, like:

• Difficulty connecting and empathizing with your team
• Fewer opportunities to build rapport and trust
• Meeting fatigue
• Unbalanced discussions with some sharing more ideas than others  

Simple Tips to Encourage Participation

While short attention spans and remote bonding are barriers, you can still encourage participation with icebreakers and personality polls.

Icebreakers are great for breaking the initial tension that often comes with virtual meetings. Building rapport isn’t an overnight process. However, you can foster connection with icebreakers. The best part? You can personalize each game to get to know each other better.

Test out these icebreakers and anecdotes at your next meeting:  

• Show and tell: Have your participants grab a unique item from their office and tell a short story about it. You can reuse this idea by rotating themes, such as holidays. This game is fantastic at showcasing different personalities in your group.

• Two truths and a lie: Two truths is a simple game where each person shares three facts about themselves–one of the answers is a lie, while the others are true. Then, the participants guess which fact is false.

• Personal check-ins: Touching base with your team routinely can help gauge their mental health and well-being. You can ask how they’re feeling based on a scale and what they’re looking forward to in the upcoming week.

Wondering about how to make meetings more interactive beyond icebreakers? Consider creating polls to inspire enthusiastic participation.

• Opinion polls: Offer live polls to gather new ideas or introduce a topic. If participants prefer to remain anonymous, you can set this up so that everyone feels included without being in the spotlight.

• Themed polls: These surveys include interactive questions that require unique responses. For example, if you could choose one superpower for a day, what would it be? What’s your favorite book/movie of all time? What’s the one food you couldn’t live without? Cats or dogs? Like the show-and-tell game, you can reuse this poll while switching up the theme.

Live Collaboration With Miro, Mentimeter, or Whiteboards

Miro, Mentimeter, and whiteboards are digital collaboration tools that visually engage teams and enable real-time editing during brainstorming sessions. While these presentation tools have a similar function, they also provide unique features.

For instance,Mentimeter has polls, quizzes, and word clouds, making it easy to include icebreakers in your meetings. Whiteboards are digital canvases featuring text, sticky notes, and drawings.

Thinking about testing a virtual meeting engagement tool at your next conference? Here are some common capabilities you may find helpful in your sessions:

• Live editing: Team members can revise whiteboards and see changes in real time.

• Diverse templates: Digital whiteboards are excellent visual aids for workshops and all-staff meetings. You can rely on pre-made templates for live brainstorming and idea mapping.

• Creative components: Some whiteboard software includes freehand drawing, flowchart templates, and project management software integrations, streamlining updates for your team in a centralized hub.

Breakout Groups for Creative Discussions

Wondering how to make meetings more interactive? In addition to icebreakers and polls, you can start including breakout groups. Breakout groups allow people to voice their opinions and contribute to the larger conversation.

For remote teams, consider dividing everyone up into think tank groups. Share a relevant topic and see what solutions your team comes up with. Then, come back together and summarize your findings.

Set your breakout groups up for success by:

• Having time limits: Provide 10-15 minutes to ensure your meeting doesn’t run over.

• Offering clear prompts: The more precise, the better. The last thing you want is an unproductive conversation that doesn’t lead to new insights. Instead, provide prompts to guide the chat.

• Requesting responses: Ask your groups to share a general summary from their discussion. This ensures everyone can bring their ideas to the table.

Metro Offices’ Advantage for Interactive Collaboration

For those seeking a productive place to work outside the home, look no further than Metro Offices. Our coworking spaces make it easy to drop by and work for a few hours whenever you want. With open seating in our business lounges and dedicated desks, you can select a workspace that supports your focus.  

If you prefer a more private option for your meetings, consider our well-equipped conference rooms. Whether you meet in person or virtually, it’s essential to conduct your conferences with intention.

That may mean considering your team’s preferences and needs, renting a professional workspace, and engaging in topics beyond the workplace.

If your main objective is to make your meetings more engaging and capture the best insights from your team, go back to the basics. Explore your meeting practices and ways to improve them to inspire meeting participation.

You don’t necessarily need fancy tools to captivate your team. Instead, you can apply a human-centric approach that utilizes their interests and personalities. From there, you can add tools, tips, and smart conference rooms to complete the equation.

​Transform your team’s meeting experience and book a Metro Offices space today. 

Kathlene Buchanan

As the founder of Metro Offices, she has championed workspace innovation since 1989, inspired by the creativity and drive of their 30,000+ clients. Woman-owned and locally focused, the company tailors its spaces to meet the unique needs of every business.