What I learned from doing a remote talk as a team

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

I recently gave a remote talk with a few colleagues on UX design stories from 2 years of work on a legacy replacement project.

On reflection, there were a few things I learned from organising and giving this talk.

Practice, practice, practice

It was so important for me to practice on my own but also as a group. Going through my slides out loud helped me spot things that don't flow or make sense. Practicing all together makes the presentation flow like a story. It also allowed others to build on and reference things each of us said.

One thing that worked well was asking people to record a video of their part and post it to the group chat. It helped us sync-up without finding a slot where everyone was free.

Join 10 mins before to check everything is working

I'm SO glad we did this because the Zoom id was invalid and quickly found that out. 10 minutes was plenty of time to generate a new Zoom link and update the invites.

Handling questions - 1-minute pause and ask people to read them out

At the end of each story, we built in a 1 minute pause for people to reflect on what they heard and put questions in the Zoom chat. We got 10+ questions by the end of the talk which was awesome! The 1 minute Zoom silence was a bit weird but since it was designed deliberately, it worked out. Next time I will fill it with 1 min of music or a countdown video.

Also, even though questions were written in the Zoom chat, I asked people to read their question out loud.  I found this much better than reading out the question myself because the person usually elaborated and it’s good to hear people’s voices.

Having multiple speakers is like having a team for a presentation

Thinking back to my last few presentations, organising talks with multiple speakers is my modus operandi. I think multiple perspectives and voices make for an interesting presentation. But, collaborating is also my comfort zone. I really enjoy working as a team and having multiple speakers is like having a team for a talk. 

From this experience, there’s a few takeaways I’ll feed into my next presentation:

• Practice alone and practice together — it’s a key part of putting together a presentation

• Do a “sound check” 10 minutes before — it helps catch logistical mishaps

• Give people space to think about questions — 1 minute is just enough to let people collect their thoughts on what they just heard. Accept the awkward silence.

• Think of multiple speakers as a presentation team — work together, collaborate, get input and feedback. It makes the story and the flow better.