Earlier this year we wrote about the decision making involved in deciding to plan and carry out a virtual event. Beyond large events and conferences, a virtual environment can be effective for training and group brainstorming. In fact, sometimes a virtual meeting can be more effective than an in-person one. In this blog post from HP, they show that a 20 person brainstorming kick-off meeting was successfully completed in just 40 minutes as opposed to what traditionally would have been a half day event. By allowing participants to type in their ideas to a virtual whiteboard, all participants could concurrently see ideas and begin expanding on them.
This success in efficiency is not guaranteed; there is a lot of planning that goes into setting up a virtual meeting for success.
- Set expectations - people are going to want to multi-task. Set the expectation from the beginning that you expect focus and participation. From the very beginning randomly call on participants to show that at any moment someone can get called on. This article even goes so far to suggest keeping everyone off mute. While that might create some technical challenges in sound clarity it will stop people from typing or taking calls while on the line.
- Make yourself accountable - take periodic polls or ask for feedback to ensure your presentation is being well-received and information retained. If you don't get the answers you expect, change up the presentation style or material.
- Let people prepare - give participants a look at the agenda well before the meeting. Highlight the areas where you will want input, that way they can come into the meeting with initial ideas and you can immediately begin whiteboarding and brainstorming.
Beyond the event itself, virtual meetings can continue to save people time. By recording events you remove the need to create meeting minutes and wrap-ups. These recordings can also be sent out to people who missed the event completely or used later for a new group of people, eliminating the need to repeat already presented material.
How have you seen efficiency gained with the use of virtual meetings? Let us know your experience and tips in the comments.
