Acquiring virtual meeting best practices is foolproof if your goal is to achieve an engaging and effective remote meeting.
Organizing a meeting can be difficult; planning virtual meetings even more so. The truth is that what differentiates good meetings from bad ones is, among other things, the quality of the information presented and, of course, the dynamism and attitude of the host.
However, the real question is how to attract people to your virtual meeting in a successful way? Gone are the days of meetings where participants quickly lose attention and the lack of attractiveness does not contribute to generating an active environment.
Nowadays, companies like Resolve Collaboration Services, are in charge of providing you with the best assistance services to conduct effective meetings. So, if you’re looking for tips on how to organize a successful meeting, read on.
1
What is a virtual meeting and why should I know its basic guidelines?
Before we dive into the essentials of virtual meeting planning, it is important to delineate its meaning.
A virtual meeting is a meeting between one, two or more people through an meeting platform. In recent times and with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the management of such meetings has become a frequent practice for remote work.
In many regions of the world, it has been incorporated as an optional activity to manage important business issues. In others, it has become the only means of interaction between general management and their partners or employees. It is therefore important to give these modes of communication the attention they deserve.
To ensure acceptance and welcome by the participants, it is necessary to follow some ground rules for virtual meetings. These range from the use of appropriate clothing, reducing the noise of the environment and taking care of environmental aspects, to the use of a management meeting agenda and some good collaboration tools.
Using an established agenda will allow you to organize a meeting efficiently, respect schedules and maintain a thematic order. This will contribute to the correct understanding of what you are trying to present and at the same time keep your audience attentive and participative.
2
Increase your productivity: organize effective meetings
Planning a routine meeting, a management meeting or a business conference can become a topic of debate on productivity issues. Some think that group meetings via video conference can be ineffective and instead, it is more convenient to meet individually with each of the convened.
However, this usually happens when there is no proper organization of the event and a lack of interest on the part of the recipients prevails. This is where the question arises: How to manage a meeting to make it more efficient?
We advise you to first generate expectations in the participants or the team members. After the respective greeting and a general introduction, set a time for the attendees to state their objectives for the meeting. This way you will have specific guidelines on the agenda items to emphasize.
This will also allow you to direct the focus of the attendees to their overall interests and goals. For this reason, it is vitally important that you prepare in advance. Then get the agenda to them so that they understand why their attendance and participation is absolutely necessary.
Small groups tend to have better communication.
3
Involve all participants
In line with the above, working with small groups usually improves the efficiency of your remote meeting. The reason? It is easier to incorporate the participation of the attendees, in addition to generating a more human environment, in which the difference in space does not generate discrepancies.
An excellent way to contribute to this objective is the assignment of roles. Establish opportune moments for the participation of all members, assign specific tasks and particular objectives for each person in the virtual meeting.
Provide a variety of activities: take notes, create reports, signal if a participant has raised his or her hand. Even someone to keep track of the meeting time. Each role is important and contributes to virtual meeting best practices.
Encourage them to keep the cameras on, to open the microphone at appropriate times and, above all, to respect the diverse opinions that may be generated. Instead of throwing questions to the group, point out specific people. In this way, everyone will participate equally and the interventions will not be reduced to a few.
Remember that the etiquette of virtual meetings as well as the etiquette of business meetings is not just a matter of attire. Encouraging participation from every attendee is part of the courtesy you offer as a host.
Allow all voices to be heard.
4
Optimize time
Remote meetings can lend themselves to digressions and thus compromise the time of those involved. This, in addition to slowing down processes, translates as rudeness.
To avoid falling into these mistakes, it is necessary to maintain focus and avoid touching on topics that had not been established in the agenda. A short meeting can be as or more productive than a long meeting. The latter, however, runs the risk of being poorly organized and subject to major inconveniences.
If your meeting extends beyond the stipulated time, try to provide a short break in the middle. In this way, you ensure a greater capacity to receive attendees during the second half of the day. This allows you to get best practice in virtual meetings.
However, this does not mean that the meeting should become boring. It is necessary to keep the attention of the interlocutors, with the incorporation of resources or tools, typical of the digital world. Create interactive surveys, develop dynamics and practical questionnaires.
The rules of the meetings will always be focused on preserving everyone’s interests. Time optimization and accuracy of information are the most important resources.
Try not to have delays at the beginning or end. You should foresee all possible inconveniences and assign an alternate who knows the parameters and guidelines of the remote meeting. This, of course, in case it is necessary to replace him/her.
5
Keep the pace throughout the virtual meeting
A common pitfall of face-to-face or online meetings is that most of the energy is concentrated at the beginning and diffuses as the meeting progresses. Under this system, it is much more difficult to control whether the participants are paying attention or whether they are instead focused on their cell phones or other issues unrelated to the meeting.
For this reason, it is important to maintain the pace and encourage the participation of all attendees.
Culminating the meeting in an appropriate manner is as important as starting a meeting with the necessary energy.
What about tools? Learn about Resolve Collaboration Services programs
Every one of your meetings is an important gathering. That’s why at Resolve Collaboration Services we’re committed to providing you with quality programs and tools for your events.
Develop virtual meeting best practices. Whether you’re looking to connect with a targeted audience or have a remote meeting at your company, we have the solution.
Thinking of incorporating Virtual and Hybrid Event Services? In our 15+ years of experience we have delivered over 6000 completely successful events.
