3 Tips for hosting a better virtual meeting
’Tis the season for grant deadlines, conferences, and year-end scrambling. As many of us try to wrap up commitments for 2020, effective meetings are crucial. In this post, we offer virtual facilitation tips gleaned from meetings, conference facilitation and online teaching to help you plan and host more engaging online gatherings.
We hope that these learnings will save you a bit of time and open up new opportunities for engagement.
Tip 1. Set Meeting Goals
Spelling out objectives will help any meeting run more smoothly, virtual or otherwise. When you invite people to gather, let them know what you hope to accomplish. Start the meeting with a statement to the effect of, “In the next 45 minutes, my goal is to help us decide on X.”
Some common goals for getting together:
· To make a collective decision
· To share a learning or best practice
· To plan a project
Don’t be afraid to give participants a five-minute heads up when it’s time to wind the meeting down. Dedicate at least two minutes to recap any next steps verbally. Follow up within a few hours to reiterate by email.
Tip 2. Create the Right Conditions
From pajama pants to technicolor Zoom backgrounds, virtual calls have brought a new set of behaviors that can make these strange times even more disorienting. Especially for large meetings, it’s a good idea to provide a set of guidelines to help participants engage in the conversation.
Your terms of reference will depend on the tools and goals at hand. Consider what capabilities are available to you, and which of those will help you reach your meeting goal.
How should participants to chime in?
Should participants unmute and speak freely, or do you want silence and video off? If you are giving or hosting a formal presentation, it may be appropriate to ask participants to turn off cameras and mics. In smaller meetings where you want dialogue, it can be demoralizing to try to engage a sea of blank screens with red icons. Let participants know how they can create the best experience for themselves and each other.
How will you leverage the chat feature?
Chat etiquette varies widely by context. Some events use it to host side bars and exchange resources. In other contexts, organizers prefer to limit the chat to the presentation at hand. If you see the chat as a complement to your event, tell the participants, and plan to share the transcript or notes later. If unbridled side conversations will distract you or your presenters, investigate whether you can limit the chat feature to avoid unwanted chatter.
What else is in your toolbox?
Virtual platforms like Zoom, Skype and Microsoft Teams each offer different features and different buttons to access them. Extras like polls, breakout groups and annotations not only break up the monotony, but they also enable opportunities unique to virtual gatherings.
It’s a good idea to take a minute early in the meeting to demonstrate the features that participants can use. This far into virtual life, we’re at the point where many people are afraid to ask.
Tip 3. Facilitate like a Boss
The best bosses clarify expectations and know when to take charge. This can be uncomfortable, but, done well, it can also put participants at ease. You can soften the awkwardness by addressing it head on. Try a statement like this one: “Given the communication glitches that can happen in this online context, I plan to be more directive in this meeting that I might be if we were gathering in person. Please feel free to let me know if there are ways that I can make this experience work better for you.”
Some strategies to take charge before, during, and after your meeting:
· Enforce your rules of engagement by reminding participants of the guidelines that you have set. Clarifying these guidelines at the beginning of the meeting makes it easier to step in when participants have trouble or go rogue.
· If you have presenters, tell them ahead of time how you will run things. How will you let them know when time is running out? How will you run the Q&A?
· Enlist help. Having colleagues on hand to monitor the chat and help out with the technical pieces will free you up to fully engage in the event. Visible teamwork minimizes glitches and sets the tone for collaboration.
Finally, cut yourself some slack. Technical difficulties have become a rite of passage. Apologize, communicate, and make jokes when needed. If anything, a mistake or two will show that you are human — and we all need a little more humanity these days.
