The 5 simple, yet crucial, web meeting preparation tips
Success is preceded by effective preparation. Your web meetings should rarely be ad hoc, and even still they should follow structure. Without the appropriate preparations your meetings can quickly overshoot on the allocated time and not cover everything on the agenda. But we have all been there; wheeled our chair around to a colleagues desk, to discuss a two minute issue, to only leave two hours later. This occurs with almost every web meeting without the appropriate preparation. The causes can occur from before the meeting has begun to the many hours after the meeting. Today we are going to talk you through five simple steps to ensure you are prepared for your web meeting.
1.Check your internet connection
It seems obvious, something we take for granted should just naturally work as and when we need it. However, internet can, at times, be unreliable. This is especially true within shared working environments.
The starting point for your meeting; you need to check and double check the internet connection in the precise location you will be hosting your meeting. Once you have ticked all the boxes for connectivity, find an alternative location as a back up.
2. Set agenda and time allocation to each item
The meeting needs to have direction. Your meeting attendees need to know what will be spoken about in the meeting. Each part of the meeting needs its own sub agenda with key points and milestones. In addition, set time limits on each agenda. Web Meeting solutions, such as Drum’s, will provide you with a meeting timer to help you keep track of the meeting length.
Use the meeting timer wisely to not only ensure the meeting does not overrun but to also help maintain control of the meeting attendees.
3. Understand the expected outcomes
This is something which leads on from your meeting agenda. You have outlined each part of the meeting and assigned a topic. Now we need you to go ahead and create a list of the expected outcomes. What do you expect to achieve from the meeting? This are not set in stone but allows you to increase the guidance of the meeting and make your meeting review more effective. In addition, you can use the meeting outcomes to guide your next meeting.
Whether it be prioritising outstanding issues/tasks or continuing the progress of a project. Your meetings follow a structure, and with Drum’s meeting replay you can begin to piece together the project in meetings. Understand how each project progressed, whilst reviewing the process to improve future projects.
4. Make sure everyone can enter the meeting
Different web meeting solutions have different requirements and methods of creating and joining a meeting. Be sure you understand the best way to create and join the meeting, even if it is a solution you are familiar with. Some solutions require regular downloads to ensure you have the most up to date version. This is where we would recommend using a browser-based solution such as Drum’s. You avoid potential hurdles, for you and your guests, of downloading large programmes. This is a common cause of meeting attendees either arriving late or not making the meeting.
5. Test run your meeting as a host
Finally, complete a test run of every meeting. Make sure you are familiar with the tools and you can upload the required documents. Not all web meeting solutions support every type of document. You can either view their website to understand the list of supported file types of use the test run for trial and error. Unsupported documents can usually be converted into different types of files with third party solutions.
Meeting preparation is the key to the meeting success.. There are points we have touched on here which you may find more useful than other aspects. Maybe we have missed out your number top tip for an effective meeting. Tell us about them!
