Are you struggling to make your virtual team meetings productive?
Well in this video, I'm going to share with you tried and true tips that I use that make
my virtual team meetings effective, efficient, and productive.
While we're talking about teams and virtual team meetings, you probably also run some
projects with those teams.
So stay tuned to the end of this video because I'm going to share with you an amazing checklist,
which is going to help you ensure that those projects that you work on with your virtual
teams are awesome.
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Let's get to it.
Get everyone on the same page.
This means that you need to ensure everyone is very clear with what's expected of them.
Through that expectation, how do you do that?
Well, agendas and ground rules for your meetings.
Those are really important elements that, interestingly enough with virtual meetings,
sometimes I don't see have happened or let alone in a regular meeting, but so critical
in a virtual meeting.
So when it comes to agendas, here's a few things.
Ensure that it's shorter than what you think.
So if you're planning and you're putting in five agenda items and you're like, "Oh, I
think this is going to take an hour," add another 20 minutes because I promise you,
what's going to have happen, is they just go on longer than you expect.
So shorten your agendas.
Be really succinct with them and see if you can time it to have an understanding of what's
going out there.
Send them out minimum 24 hours in advance.
People need to know what to expect in regards to what's being presented because a lot of
times when it comes to virtual meetings, people are in back to back to back meetings so you
need to be aware of that and really be succinct with your information.
Now, when it comes to ground rules, this really helps ensure everyone stays on the same page.
Yes, the agenda's giving them the information, but the ground rules is really what is going
to top everything off.
And there's a few that I have all the time.
Video on.
This is a really important ground rule when it comes to virtual meetings, because I don't
see you when your camera's off.
I get so much more information with the camera on and seeing your face.
You also want to have things like perhaps mute the mic, embrace some messiness, because
let's be honest, virtual meetings we just don't have control over some things like technology
blips and issues.
So embrace that messiness.
I even say this, if you accidentally leave the meeting because sometimes we're in breakout
rooms with those great technology that we use with virtual meetings and we can click
on the wrong thing and exit.
So I just make it a rule, if you accidentally leave them and just hop right back in.
So having those ground rules sets up the expectation on how everyone is supposed to be on that
same page, along with your agenda.
Get everyone involved.
This is really helpful from a virtual meeting perspective because everyone's in their own
space anyway.
They're from home, they're working in their own office, they're not around anyone.
So by getting everyone involved, it really helps with the rules and responsibilities,
and accountability in the meeting.
So from a logistical standpoint, what you can do is you can assign a note taker.
I do suggest in advance, let them know that they're going to potentially be a note taker,
but I've also done it on the fly as well.
You can also ask for someone to be the chat window watcher.
You can ask someone to be a timekeeper.
There's lots of things you can do.
You can even in advance ask someone to come up with a real cool icebreaker, so they could
be a lead of that.
That's a nice way to get people involved.
And from the standpoint of the meeting itself, ensure that when you're presenting information
or concepts that you get to everybody in the room.
Now this is going to be dependent upon how many people are on your virtual call and how
many team members you have specifically.
But if you can, go to each window, the nice video on, and ask, "Hey, Jane, how do you
feel?
John?
Yourself?
Yourself?"
And just as you would in a regular meeting around the table, which we call round robin.
You go from everyone from the left and they all go in sequence.
Same concept, but you're doing it virtually in a window.
So that's a really lovely way to get everyone involved from an accountability perspective
and roles and responsibilities.
Alertness really is what's going to come out of that, which will be better and more efficient
and effective and productive for your virtual team meeting.
Leverage your technology tools.
Now on virtual meetings, there's virtual platforms in order for us to have those virtual meetings
and in those platforms, there are many things that you can use like white boards, maybe
some sticky note activities, depending, again, on the platform that you're using.
So really understand what that is.
Polling, to get more interaction, that involvement that we just talked about a moment ago.
Now, what I find that's really important with the technology is, do not assume that a whiteboard
in a virtual setting is exact same thing like a whiteboard in a live meeting.
There are two different entities.
I always highly recommend practice.
Practice with a small group who you can walk through ideas and activities to really leverage
the technology.
I'm always surprised when I think logically from a live meeting perspective of, let's
say doing a whiteboard activity and then trying to save it or share it, that it doesn't necessarily
work the way my mind thinks it works.
So you really have to understand how the technology works.
So practice, practice, practice, but definitely leverage the technology tools that are available
on these virtual meeting sites.
There's some really cool stuff which can add to some really great outputs, getting your
virtual team meeting team together and getting really your activities that you need from
that particular meeting.
Be prepared.
I'm going to let you know this, 80% of successful virtual team meetings are successful because
of the preparation work that went into it.
For some reason, I do find that individuals with a virtual meeting, maybe because they're
home and there's this casualness associated with it, I'm finding that preparation is not
there as much as if it was at a live meeting in an office setting where people are dressed
up in their professional suits.
I don't know exactly what it is.
I'm just throwing out there as a potential reason.
But being prepared, and I'm not just talking about the things I've talked about before,
like testing out your technology or doing your agendas and your rules.
I'm really think it through.
Who are you inviting?
How are you going to do things?
What preparation are you going to have?
Are you going to do pre read?
You really have to think it through.
Do I have too much on my agenda, too little?
All of that preparation stuff, which encompasses all of the tips, is really critical.
If you get that solid, then your meeting will be extremely successful.
Now here's a little side note, probably a 180, maybe like the ying and the yang.
You also need to be flexible.
And what I mean by that is a lot of times when I prepare for meetings myself, and I'm
very clear and I practice and I've done everything that I'm sharing with you in these tips, I
actually do the meeting and something just didn't work because you're putting all these
ideas together and then you're executing it at the meeting live.
So be flexible, have some backups in case you need it.
What's your plan B?
Because with virtual meetings, they're going to be things that just pop up you have no
control over.
Maybe even though you practice, it's not working well, so what can you do as another activity,
even though you practice it with your team or the side note people I asked you to do
with earlier on.
So just be prepared.
That's really critical.
And if you do that, I promise you your meetings will be extremely successful all the time.
Now, if you want even more tips on how to have really productive virtual team meetings,
I want you to go to the link below, grab this.
If you have virtual team meetings, you definitely have virtual projects and understanding how
successful you can be, or unsuccessful, is going to be really important.
So check it out.
These are the top 10 reasons why most projects fail.
And I want you to be successful, so check it out on the link below.
On that note, if you could please subscribe to this channel, like this video, share it
with everyone you know, and if you have any other tips that you want to add in regards
to virtual team meetings, please put them in the comments below.
Until the next video, see you later.