Stephen Turner
Akash Kumar
Jordan Lee
Taylor Scott
What is a hybrid meeting?
A hybrid meeting is one where some participants are together in a physical room and others join from somewhere else, usually by video. The hard part is fairness: remote people struggle to hear side talk, see the room or get a turn. Good hybrid meetings plan for that.
The short answer
A hybrid meeting is a meeting where some participants share a physical room and others join remotely, from home or from another room. The W3C's meeting guide defines it this way.
It differs from a fully remote meeting, where everyone joins on their own device, and from an in-person meeting with no one dialing in. The mix is what makes it harder to run.
Hybrid, remote and in-person compared
| In-person | Fully remote | Hybrid | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where people are | All in one room | Each on their own device | Some in a room, some remote |
| Equipment | A room | A video tool, and a good microphone and camera for each person | Room cameras, microphones and screens, plus the video tool |
Why hybrid meetings are hard
Microsoft Research's hybrid meetings guide lists the main problems. Remote people find it hard to hear concurrent talk and see individuals in the room. They struggle to use physical things like a whiteboard, and it's hard to tell how engaged they are.
The guide adds that remote participation hurts some people more, such as new or junior attendees. The W3C puts the goal plainly: everyone needs to feel like an equal participant, or it's an in-person meeting with best-effort call-in.
How to run one well
These practices come from the W3C and Microsoft Research guides:
- Make sure remote people can see every face in the room, and the room can see theirs.
- Plan microphones so everyone in the room can be heard, including quiet speakers.
- Tell remote people at the start how they're seen and heard in the room.
- Use hand-raising for turns, and invite remote people to speak first.
- Keep one conversation at a time, so side talk doesn't shut out remote people.
- Make sure everyone knows where to find the notes and recording afterwards.
Example: a weekly team meeting
This example is illustrative. Six people meet in an office and three join from home. The facilitator sits in the room, so a remote teammate watches the chat and the raised hands.
Each agenda item starts with a remote person. A whiteboard sketch is redrawn on a shared screen so everyone sees the same thing.
Keeping one record for everyone
Hybrid meetings often leave two versions of events: what the room heard and what came through the call. One shared transcript and set of notes fixes that. Ask everyone, in the room and remote, before you record.
If you host the call on Bridge, the transcript and notes cover everyone on the call. If the meeting is in a room with no video link, Bridge can record it from a laptop or phone microphone.