Whether you’re an in-person or remote worker, effective communication is essential to your success. Meetings online can be difficult to conduct, however following the guidelines in this article can help organize more effective meetings.
Keep the participants engaged right at the beginning. Start meetings with an introduction to the group. For example asking people to share their highlights of the past week or an incident they found funny. This creates a positive mood and gives the attendees something to focus on before getting into agenda items.
Make sure you have a designated note-taker at the start of the meeting. It’s easy for participants to miss important details in a remote meeting, and having a dedicated person to record the discussion can prevent miscommunication. Encourage everyone to make notes so they can review and apply the information later.
In a virtual space, it can be difficult to keep from interrupting or speaking at the same moment as another person. To avoid this encourage turn-taking, you should encourage the use of “raise your hand” in your virtual meeting software.
End your meeting with clear actions. This will ensure that your team stays focused on the goals and decisions you make in your meetings. It’s a good idea to send an overview of the outcome of the meeting along with actions items within a couple of days of the end of the meeting. This can be done via an online document shared look at here with the group or by sending an email to your meeting software.