Companies all around the globe are adopting remote working arrangements these days. Distributed teams must establish positive working relationships with distant coworkers and communicate successfully via online meetings.
Fortunately, dispersed working doesn’t have to mean sloppy meetings. Your team may conduct an efficient online meeting that is just as productive and collaborative as having everyone in the same room with some planning.
Here are six tips for planning, participating in, and following up on online meetings so that communication is crystal clear and essential information and duties aren’t overlooked.
Getting Ready for Online Meetings
You’ll get more outstanding outcomes during and after an online meeting if you prepare ahead of time.
#1. Make a schedule.
The agenda is an essential aspect of meeting preparation. It will help everyone join the meeting on the same page and keep attendees focused on the most critical issues. A good agenda more about fostering understanding for participants, especially those in the same room. People are more prone to forget, lose concentration, and attention to the meeting if there’s no plan.
Include the following items in your plan:
- Ask for attendees’ thoughts on the topic
- Take notes of the decisions taken
- Determine who will lead the conversation for each topic
- Make space on the schedule for any last-minute changes or queries.
#2. Set up your workspace.
Distractions happen, whether it’s a cat strolling in front of your camera or a trash truck driving down your neighborhood. While you can’t avoid every accident, prepping your home office ahead of time may help.
Find a quiet location where you can minimize distractions before the meeting. To reduce background noise and avoid auditory feedback, use headphones. If you’re using new conferencing software, give it a test run before starting the online conference.
Taking Part Like Pros
It’s meeting time, and you’re all set. Here are the tips you should follow to have a successful online meeting.
#3. Take it slow & steady.
Due to a two to three-second latency for most systems to communicate, video-conference sessions should really proceed at a little slower pace than a regular meeting. If you’re in charge of the meeting, make sure there are enough pauses after each question. If you’re a participant, draw attention to yourself by indicating with your hand or saying “question” or “comment” and then pausing for a few seconds before continuing.
#4. Take copious notes.
All meetings may benefit from good note-taking, and there are a variety of web conferencing tools and methods for doing so. If you want to take notes during a face-to-face meeting, a whiteboard is a good option. You can also use Google Keep, Evernote, or other popular note-taking apps. It’s a fantastic approach to keep everyone on board, provide greater clarity, and receive feedback from everyone in the team.
Following Up the Meeting
Here are a few things you can do to conclude an online meeting (and beyond) to ensure that everyone participating is communicating well.
#5. Before you go, go through everything again.
As the meeting draws to a close, have everyone review the action items they are accountable for. This is a method to guarantee that everyone knows who is responsible for what and maintains accountability. When you can’t see facial emotions or body language, that additional clarity is beneficial.
#6. Postpone your debriefing till later.
Our initial response is to quickly debrief with coworkers, especially if we’ve just completed a high-stakes meeting. But don’t say anything until you’re out of the room. Because you don’t want distant participants to overhear anything you didn’t intend to disclose. As a general guideline, don’t talk about anything that happened until you’re out of the room.
Online meetings have the same objectives as in-person meetings: communicate effectively so you can make choices that drive your company ahead.
