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Ensure your virtual meetings are productive
Virtual meetings can be tricky at times. Are they more like a telephone call or a face-to-face meeting? Well, they are a combination of both and should be treated differently. Here are some quick and easy “Dos” and “Donts” for virtual meetings.
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Virtual Meeting “Dos”
- Ensure all stakeholders essential to achieving the meeting’s goals can attend—Otherwise, reschedule it
- Consider rotating the meeting time to accommodate those participants in different time zones
- Prepare an agenda that outlines the meeting goals
- Ensure meeting items/priorities/times align with meeting goals
- Cancel a regularly scheduled meeting if you feel time could be better spent elsewhere
- Send a meeting reminder with the agenda, needed materials, and information on the technology to be used at least three days before the meeting
- Ask team members who are not speaking to put their phones on mute
- Ensure everyone participates
- Eliminate distractions—Ask people to turn off all smartphones, and to avoid email and instant messaging during the meeting
- Side bar and report to make necessary side conversations part of the official function of the meeting
- Document decisions and next steps
Virtual Meeting “Donts”
- Hold a meeting if you can’t clearly answer the question “What is the purpose and expected outcome?”
- Let meetings become “habit”
- Attempt to cover more than five specific items per meeting
- Allow side issues, “experts”, or native speakers to dominate the meeting
- Hold a meeting even if any stakeholders essential to the meeting objectives cannot participate
- Assume team members are clear about their roles and the meeting objectives
- Continuously hold “marathon” meetings without any small-group brainstorming or breaks
- Tackle critical topics at the start of the meeting
- Let the meeting get off track by discussing the details of an action item that aren’t relevant to the meetings goals
- Start late
More tips on virtual teams?
These dos and donts are only a small sample of the tips in our latest Ebook: The ultimate book of Virtual Teams checklists. Make sure you download a copy if you're interested in maximizing your virtual team's impact. Enjoy the read and... let us know what works for your virtual team!
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