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Zoom vs Google Meet: The Best Platform for Scrum Meetings

scrum meeting

Every remote team understands the importance of a daily scrum or stand-up meeting. A daily scrum meeting, also called a daily standup, is a meeting at the beginning of the workday. A daily scrum is used to set the tone for the rest of the day and ensure that employees are on track and working towards their goals. A scrum meeting agenda typically includes each employee discussing their daily projects and goals. A manager is typically who starts the daily scrum meeting with their own daily goals and then invites others to do the same.

While working remotely, scrum standups ensure that the workday will be a productive one, even while employees work from home. But what platform should you use to hold your daily scrum over video?

Zoom and Google Meet have emerged as the two top video conferencing platforms. Both let you connect visually with your work team from a distance. We’ve already gone over how to host meetings and live stream on each platform, but when it comes to a daily scrum meeting, there are additional factors to consider. Let’s consider the pros and cons of Zoom and Google Meet and compare them to see which one is best for your scrum.

Zoom

Zoom is an enterprise-level video conferencing platform that offers HD video and audio, live stream webinars, phone calls, and text chat. The platform is best for online conferences and multi-team business meetings.

woman watching a zoom video conference

Pros

  • Free plan allows for videos up to 40 minutes long with up to 100 participants, more than enough for most teams’ scrum meetings.
  • Breakout Rooms: Break up larger meetings into smaller teams with breakout rooms. Meeting in small groups makes it easier for more employees to speak and engage with one another.
  • Group Chat: Follow up on your scrum meeting later in the day via Zoom’s group chat.
  • Simultaneous Screen Sharing: Multiple users can share their screens simultaneously. Users can also annotate each others’ screens.
  • Dial-in Option: Lets employees use their phone to dial-in to meetings. You can also use the “Call Me” feature to automatically call employees when the meeting starts.
  • Record meetings and store them on the cloud for future review. 
  • Integrations with Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar let you easily plan your meetings no matter what email service your organization uses. 

Cons

  • Extras Cost: Extras like dial-in and cloud recording storage for recorded meetings costs extra. Dial-in and Call Me costs begin at  $100/mo, and cloud recording storage begins at $40/mo after 1 GB of free storage.
  • Unlimited Cloud Storage: Unlimited cloud storage is only available with the enterprise plan. To get this plan, you have to have at least 100 meeting hosts in your business. Its pricing begins at $19.99/mo/host, or $1,999/mo.
  • Host Limits: Free accounts only allow for one host. If your organization needs multiple hosts for your scrum meetings, you will either need each to create their own account, which could be confusing to other employees, or upgrade to a paid plan.

Google Meet

Google Meet is Google’s online meeting platform. It can be used as part of G Suite, Google’s package for businesses, or on its own. Google Meet is best for everyday meetings, information panels, and those who already use Google workplace tools. 

google meet video conference options

Pros

  • Free Plan: The Google Meet free plan can host up to 100 participants for up to 1 hour-long meetings.
  • G Suite Plans: G Suite plans include shared Google Drive folders, custom Gmail, and other Google workplace products. This means you can use G Suite to store scrum meeting notes on your Google Drive. These plans start at $8/user/mo for your organization.
  • Google Calendar Integration: Schedule your team meetings with Google Calendar and access them directly from your calendar.
  • Live closed captions in English ensure that each team member can understand one another, including those who are hard of hearing.
  • Dial-in: With a G Suite Essentials account, you can dial-in with both US and international phone numbers for no extra cost.
  • Screen Sharing: You can screen share during meetings.
  • Noise Cancellation: Google Meet has recently added intelligent noise cancellation to Enterprise clients, with the plan to eventually roll it out to all users. This will cancel any background noise in your meetings, including sounds like dog barking and bag rustling. Click here to watch a video demonstration of this exciting new feature! 

Cons

  • Google Account: You must already have a Google account to access Google Meet. On the plus side, this means that if you already use any other Google products like Gmail or Docs, you can start using Google Meet!
  • Storing Recordings: Google Drive cloud storage for meeting recordings is only available in the G Suite Enterprise Essentials Plan.
  • No Annotations: Unlike Zoom, Google Meet does not include mark-ups for screen sharing. There is also no simultaneous screen sharing. 

Zoom vs Google Meet: Which is better for scrum meetings? 

video call on a tablet surrounded by a phone, coffee cup, papers, and checklist

Both Zoom and Google Meet are an excellent choice for daily scrum meetings. The meeting time limits for free accounts on each platform should still provide more than enough time for a brief meeting at the beginning of the workday. Thus, which platform you choose will depend on what extras you want and what programs you already use.

If your team uses Gmail and other Google products for work, then Google Meet is the perfect choice for your daily scrum meeting. If you don’t all have a Gmail account, then those who don’t will need to make one if you choose Google Meet. As such, for non-Google users, Zoom may prove the better choice. However, if several members of your team use dial-in, you should use Google Meet as the cheaper option. 

Zoom is the better choice for large companies that connect at daily scrum meetings and then divide into groups. Zoom’s breakout rooms are ideal for this situation. Zoom is also the better choice for those who need to screen share simultaneously to talk about their projects for the day, as well as for collaborative screen annotation. If you need these perks, then Zoom is the best choice.

Whether you choose Zoom or Google Meet for your daily scrum will depend on the above factors, so make sure to communicate with your team before you make your final choice. Fortunately, both platforms provide an easy and efficient way to communicate with remote work teams. Whichever you choose, you are sure to be satisfied with the quality of your remote scrum meetings. 

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