Jarred Consulting

Thanks to a wide range of technology tools, virtual meetings are accessible and can be very effective.  But virtual meetings are different from the face-to-face variety in many ways. For online collaboration to succeed, participants need to communicate differently than they would if everyone were gathered in the same room together.  As many people are now “Jumping on a video call” here are our 8 Top tips to help you facilitate effective and productive virtual meetings.

1. Appoint a chair before the meeting

All meetings need someone to run the meeting, manage the timings and control the conversation. It doesn’t matter whether you are off or online they key is meeting management. We all know how frustrating some face to face meetings can be so imagine what it’s like if you are on a virtual meeting call. The key to engaging your team is proper meeting management. And to do that you need a chairperson!

2. Agree meeting rules/principles

Agree up front the rules for the meeting – things like how to raise a point, how to talk, how and when to join in.  This will help to avoid people talking over each other, or not contributing.  When people are not talking ensure they place themselves on mute! You may also want to ensure everyone logs in ahead of time if it is their first time to ensure the technology works for them.  If needed also, as in face to face meetings agree someone to take minutes and specifically record and circulate actions.

3. Set the tone

One of the biggest challenges of an online meeting is that it is more difficult to read attendees’ body language when they’re connected virtually. But this doesn’t mean that virtual meetings should feel less inclusive or personal. While it’s important to keep the meeting on track, don’t ignore the need to use a collegial and engaging communication style. An intentional approach to how you communicate at the opening of a virtual meeting will help set the tone. Visual cues, such as a smile or direct eye contact, can go a long way.  Make sure participants are introduced at the beginning of the meeting and encourage all attendees to participate. When you facilitate a virtual meeting, you may have to shift between a directive and supportive voice more than you would in an in-person meeting. You might ask more open-ended questions (supportive voice), followed by more pointed questions (directive voice) to engage different participants.

4. Share an agenda

As with face to face meetings, sharing an agenda with participants ahead of time helps everyone understand the tasks, goals, and intended outcomes of the meeting. While this is also important for in-person meetings, it is even more essential when participants are virtual because it can be more challenging to manage participants’ different personality and communication styles. An agenda is a useful tool for doing this. For example:

• The attendee who is direct and bottom-line driven will be listening for the outcomes that are needed from the meeting.
• The attendee who focuses on details will be looking for a specific agenda and timeline.
• The attendee who wants to connect with others will be looking for opportunities to share his or her voice.

 

5. Actively monitor the meeting’s progress

 Again, because you can’t read attendees’ body language so well, you need to look for other ways to monitor the group’s progress. Regularly remind participants where you are on the agenda and check in with them throughout the meeting to see if they have any questions about what’s been discussed so far. You may find that your directive voice is needed at the beginning of the meeting, when participants might prefer someone to take charge and get the meeting going in the right direction. But as it progresses and your participants begin to engage in conversation, you may want to step back into a more supportive role.

6. Adopt a facilitative style

Although in a 'normal' face­-to-­face meeting things like breaks, regular summaries and clarity about the process are important, when you can't ‘read’ each other so well, these things are perhaps even more important, but easier to forget about.  So, to make your meeting effective:

• plan in regular breaks, especially if it is a long meeting - it can be difficult to concentrate at a virtual meeting. Split up the meeting into sections if necessary
• summarise lots - it's so easy to lose the thread of an email or chat based discussion (mix your media - if you are using VOIP, post summaries on a wiki: this reminds everyone where things are at); for virtual video meetings capture actions on a slide as you go which can be seen by all participants
• keep an eye open for people who aren't contributing - it's very easy to overlook quiet participants when you can't see them
• only discuss one thing at a time
• If using real time tools, ensure you ask attendees open, catch all questions to give everyone a chance to contribute.

7. Prepare for technical challenges!

Online meetings rely on technology tools that can be unpredictable. In the prework, advise attendees what to do if they have technical issues logging into the system you’re using. If tech glitches arise during the meeting, be ready to do a little troubleshooting, but keep it short. Don’t make your participants sit for minutes on end while you try to remedy the problem. If the problem persists, be prepared to reschedule.

8. Start and finish on time as you would in a face to face meeting

Try not to keep people hanging on in virtual waiting rooms, as this not only wastes their time, it can be de-motivating as create a sense that they, or the topic you are due to discuss is not important.  When working virtually, we have to work much harder to keep connected and maintain understanding of each other’s perspectives. For more information, you can contact us here.