At my past few jobs, I’ve had to spend a lot of time on conference calls with developers and project managers. While I don’t profess to be a “conference call expert” (or, for that matter, an etiquette expert), I think there are some general ground rules for conference calls, and I’m going to deviate a bit from my usual Hibernate/JEE topics to itemize the ones that I think are important.
At my current job, I’m actually pretty lucky. Almost all of us work remotely, so we’re pretty accustomed to how to behave in the ubiquitous con-call. At a previous engagement, I wasn’t so lucky – I’ll omit their names to protect the guilty.
So here’s an arbitrary list from me, a random guy on the internet of questionable credentials, of what you should and shouldn’t do on a conference call. Some of these probably seem really obvious, but I’m listing even the obvious ones because some people still break them:
1.) Use the Mute
Button, especially on a speakerphone. The most
important reason for using Mute is to prevent echo-y
feedback, particularly on speaker phones. If you aren’t
talking, please put your speaker phone on mute for the
sake of everyone else listening. Note that following
this rule will invariably lead to the embarrassing
situation where you start talking and don’t realize that
you’ve left your phone on mute. Don’t worry, we’ve all
done it and we’ll all forgive you!
2.) Introduce yourself
when you enter the conference. Some conference
systems will force you to state your name when you log
in, and then the robo-operator will announce you when
you join. I actually find this to be quite jarring,
especially when robo-operator interrupts what everyone
is saying. Better systems will play a quiet tone when
people enter or leave the call. Some, like one that a
client had at my previous job, will do nothing at all.
This would allow people to lurk on the line unbeknownst
to the participants, which is terribly rude.
Likewise, if you enter a conference room while a
conference call is already underway, announce yourself
at the next free moment. Ideally, the moderator of the
conference will also take a moment to introduce
everybody at the beginning of the call if there is a
chance that everyone doesn’t know each other. This is a
great
idea.
3.) Close the
Door. It’s best to go to a closed room to join a
conference call to eliminate background noise. If you
can go to such a place, do it. Don’t join a conference
call from, e.g., a street cafe or airport gate. In doing
so you risk a passing ambulance, street parade, or TSA
threats to destroy unattended luggage interrupting the
call.
4.) Don’t use a mobile
phone if you can help it. Occasionally you can
get away with using a mobile for a con-call in a pinch.
But if it’s a super-important meeting where you are
trying to make an impression or do something
complicated, nothing will be more frustrating than a
garbled, broken up, or dropped call. Try to use a
land-line if you can.
5.) Don’t eat on the
phone. I guess this is just a personal pet peeve
of mine. I can’t even listen to NPR if the announcer’s
voice is all moist and saliva-sounding. This is more
important if you’re wearing a headset.
6.) Have an agenda that
everyone receives beforehand. This goes for all
meetings, but it’s just as critical for a conference
call. This helps you set expectations and stay on-topic
during the call.
7.) Get some
screen-sharing software. Better yet, get some
screen sharing software and test it out before the
meeting. With it, you can use something as simple as
Notepad or TextMate as a virtual whiteboard. For some
reason, we never did this at my previous jobs. We’ve
done it at my current job and it works great.
8.) Pick a good time
for all participants. This is particularly
important if you’re working in different time zones.
Generally you can depend on developers being available
between 10am and 4pm in their respective time zones –
you can argue that programmers need to grow up and work
regular business hours like everyone else. But until the
voodoo of deadline creation becomes a perfected science,
software people will need to occasionally work late into
the night or early in the morning to meet schedules. Or
(like anyone else) we may have daycare responsibilities
and have to leave a little early. So we stay flexible.
This means that if you’re working on, e.g., both coasts
of the United States, your best bet is between 1pm and
3pm, eastern time. If you’re working in the U.S. and the
far east, you’re usually stuck with getting the U.S.
participants to work early, and the others late in their
workday. Similarly between Europe and the U.S., the U.S.
participants will probably need to be available late in
the day, and the Europeans earlier.