Scheduling

Identify possible times when everyone can attend

Finding a time when everyone can attend is harder online than in a room, because your participants may be spread across continents and working in very different rhythms.

Scheduling a remote workshop means finding an overlap between participants' time zones, working hours, and existing commitments. For a team in the same city, that is much the same as scheduling any meeting. For a distributed or international group, it can mean choosing between morning in one region and late evening in another, with no option that is genuinely good for everyone.

The decision has real consequences. Participants asked to join a session outside their working hours or in the middle of their night are more likely to drop off, less present when they are there, and less likely to sign up again. Being transparent about the trade-off and rotating inconvenience across sessions when you run more than one builds trust.

Scheduling also means accounting for the total time ask, not just the session itself. If participants have pre-work, a live session, and follow-up, the total commitment should be communicated and justified.

Online, specificallyWhen your group spans multiple time zones, there is often no good time, only less bad ones, so be transparent about the trade-off and acknowledge who is bearing the inconvenience.

In a remote session

The same building block as it plays out online: how experienced facilitators tend to handle it when the room is a screen. Illustrations to react to, not rules to follow.

Show times in multiple zones

Good facilitators include the start time in at least two or three relevant time zones in every communication. Participants should not have to convert the time themselves.

Use a time zone tool

They use a tool like World Time Buddy or When2meet to visualise overlaps before proposing a time, especially for groups spanning more than two regions.

State the total time ask

They communicate the full commitment: session time plus pre-work plus any follow-up, so participants can plan their day and so the invitation is honest about what is being asked.

Questions to plan around

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

What time zones are your participants in, and is there a time that is reasonable for all of them?
If there is no good time for everyone, which participants are being asked to compromise, and have you acknowledged that?
Have you communicated the start time in the relevant time zones in your invitation and your welcome package?
What is the total time commitment of this session, including pre-work and follow-up, and have you stated that clearly?
If you are running multiple sessions, are you rotating the inconvenience or consistently disadvantaging the same group?

What trips people up online

Defaulting to a time that works for one region without acknowledging the cost to others in different zones signals that those participants are an afterthought.
Giving the start time in only one time zone means at least some participants will arrive at the wrong time or have to do their own conversion, which they sometimes get wrong.
Underestimating how much time the full experience takes, including pre-work and follow-up, leads to participants feeling they signed up for less than they got.