Like many people, I’ve been having lots of video meetings for work recently. I experience chronic pain and fatigue which makes it hard to take part in these calls if there aren’t clear agreed expectations.

I was thinking about this earlier, so I turned the things that help me into a list of top tips. These come from my personal experience and I’m sure other people will have suggestions of their own. Just writing mine out was useful to me, so I’m sharing them here in case they’re useful to others.

1) Offer a range of times of the day for calls to take place, discuss their duration, and agree both in advance.
2) Provide an agenda so people can prepare and refer back to it as necessary.
3) Allow enough time for both the size of group and the complexity of the agenda – meeting in this way may be new or more challenging for some people, so build in flexibility to adjust the pace to meet individual and collective requirements.
4) Build breaks into the calls, make these clear in advance, and stick to them. Don’t ignore or change break times.
5) Check in advance about any access requirements participants may have and discuss with them how to meet them and how to communicate this to the rest of the group.
6) Agree who’ll take notes and provide a simple summary of key points and actions.

Video meetings have allowed lots of incredible connections to take place, but for many it’s a new way of working. This means that it may take time to work out what everyone needs in order to make the most of them as confidently and comfortably as possible.