Improve Virtual Meetings with Tips and Tools

Some time ago, I did a popular post evaluating free on-line meeting planning and tracking tools. Earlier this year, I did 3 posts regarding virtual team-building books on members and leaders of virtual teams, as well as meeting icebreakers.  Since the virtual meeting topic still appears to be very much something people want to know about, I decided to do another post related to the topic.

This time my post is just a few links to help readers get tips on how to effectively hold virtual meetings, whether they are teleconference, videoconference or on-line web conferences.  Below you will find lots of information on how to manage effective virtual meetings and where to get how-to information on different tools (many of which offer free trials) is offered.  Let me know in the comments if I missed your favorite meeting tool or tip.  Feel free to put in the URL to tool or another article so I and future readers can check for helpful information to add to this post.

Article and blog links for virtual meeting “How To”:

• EZTalks explanation of What Is a Virtual Meeting
• 6 Tips for Prepping a Great Virtual Meeting *
• Hold a Virtual Meeting for Free
• 12 Tech Tools for Virtual Meetings 
• Tips for Facilitating Virtual Meetings on Skype and How to Use Skype 
• How To Lead a Virtual Meeting in 13 Steps  * 
• WebEX has How To Guides and Tips Blog 
• 17 Ways to Be a Better Virtual Meeting Participant  * 
• GoToMeeting Tips and System Requirements 
• 5 Excellent Things To Do After Virtual Meetings  *  
• A Dozen Tips for Facilitating an Online Meeting  
• 5 Important Tips for Successful Web Meetings
• Dimdim... odd name...great product!

Virtual meetings PDFs you may want to read or download:

• Five Tips for Better Virtual Meetings (Harvard Management 3-page article)
• 20 Simple Ways to Improve Virtual Meetings (Interaction Associates 13-page whitepaper)
• Tips for Managing A Successful Virtual Meeting (Ingenia Training 3-page with bullets  and references)
• Top 15 Tips on Hosting Virtual Meetings Using Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional (Brookwood 7-page whitepaper)

Start Virtual Team Meetings with a Little Business Improv

Since I am a contract facilitator at important business meetings or team-building events, I often get asked what should be done differently for virtual meetings verses face-to-face meetings. The basic requirements of any good meeting remain the same – follow the RARA meeting management approach of establishing Roles, starting and ending on time by following an Agenda, keeping Records with all decisions and the decision-making process documented, and assigning Actions before the end of the meeting. The main thing to keep in mind for a virtual meeting is for everyone to be more patient because you will not have the visual cues when someone wishes to talk or is ready to move to the next topic that you get in a face-to-face meeting.

Virtual meetings require the use of technology to communicate effectively. It is important that everyone knows how to effectively use the technology. Plan some training or quick reference guides on all the technologies to be used to start off on the right foot. This will ensure everyone is able to concentrate on meeting topics rather than trying to figure out how to mute/unmute when necessary over the phone or on computer speakers.

My previous 2 posts were about requirements for virtual team members and leaders to create the best team mix. To increase the team’s future success, the team should have their first meeting face-to-face. The team leader should personally contact each member, welcome them to the team by explaining how they fit into the group, and let them know when and where the first meeting will be. Then at that first meeting, conduct an activity that will make the team members more aware of the pros and cons of certain behaviors in meetings that will bog the group down. In the new book “Business Improv” by Val and Sarah Gee, they provide a great activity for this startup meeting. I have adapted this activity for virtual teams to use in their first face-to-face meeting and summarized the instructions below. There are also other activities in the book that can be done in future face-to-face meetings and a few relationship building ones that may be done in virtual meetings or by pairing up members outside the meeting.

Business Improv book

Business Improv Activity for Effective Meetings (#68 in book)

Your Objectives:

• Recognize underlying issues and cause of disruptive behaviors to eliminate them.
• Manage the need to control other’s behavior by creating personal accountability.

Activity Instructions:

1. Before starting the activity, begin with a short explanation of how you plan to handle regular meetings and unscheduled meetings only if necessary. Try to keep this talk under 5 minutes.

2. Do the activity in 4 rounds spending 2 to 3 minutes on each round.

• Round 1: Individually and silently, have each team member think about what behaviors before, during, and after a meeting may cause disruption or annoyance, and result in ineffective meetings They should select, but not share, the one they feel is the worst for the next round.
• Round 2: In small groups of 5-6 people, have the team members hold a mock meeting on any subject they choose. During this meeting, everyone is to demonstrate to the fullest the bad behavior they selected in round 1.
• Round 3: Each individual member must now think about what the opposite behavior of the one they just acted out could be. If anyone can not determine an opposite behavior, ask them to consider a good behavior they think should be used in meetings.
• Round 4: In the same small groups, have the team members hold a mock meeting on any subject they choose. During this meeting, everyone is to demonstrate to the good behavior they selected in round 3.

3. After the activity, debrief by asking the 3 questions below and allowing everyone on the team an opportunity to share their opinions on each question. Try to limit this discussion to 8-10 minutes at approximately 3 minutes per question.

• “What was the biggest difference between meetings that were disrupted and those that were not?”
• “What are the human needs behind the disruptive behaviors?”
• “What specific actions can you take to stop disruptive behaviors during meetings?”

Increasing Focus in Meetings

RARA A Meeing
Wizard's Approach

So many people hate to go to meetings because they seem to be a waste of time that could be spent on more valuable work.  There are even lots of statistics on how much time people spend in meetings and how little they feel they achieve. 


It is not that meetings are not good communication tools; it is more that many people do not know how to properly run a meeting or participate in making it worthwhile.  Meetings where everyone is focused on the task at hand can accomplish a lot in very little time.

How do you increase focus in meetings so they can be very effective and still run efficiently?  Follow this simple outline

I. Start with proper planning using the first RA (Roles, Agenda) in RA!RA!

1. Create an agenda using the 3 T’s and stick to the time constraints as much as possible in the meeting.  Don’t deviate from the agenda unless you pool all participants to make sure changes are ok. (FYI - the RARA book (on Amazon #ad) has a reproducible meeting agenda form inside as well as a checklist and presentation planning form.)
2. Assign roles like facilitator, minute-taker, gatekeeper, etc.in advance rather than wasting valuable meeting time getting volunteers.  Consider rotating the roles on a regular basis so everyone gets to do each role and knows when it is their turn.

II. Keep the meeting focused on the topic at hand by:

3. Starting on-time will get people used to the ideas of arriving early rather than late.  If you start on-time, you should be able to stop on time; you may even be able to get out a little early sometimes once your meetings become more effective. 
4. Turning off phones and other electronic devices that are not relevant to moving the meeting along the desired path.  This keeps interruptions and distractions to a minimum, as well as making it easier for all to participate in the meeting discussions. 
5. Having a written record of what the group is working on visible throughout discussion and decision making processes.  This can be accomplished with PowerPoint slides, flip chart, or marker boards in the room.
6. Stopping rabbit trails right away and bringing the group back on track by pointing to the agenda that you are following.
7. Recording all decisions and actions as you go along to reduce repetition during the meeting and questions later.

III. Follow-up with documentation using the last RA (Records, Actions) in RA!RA!

8. Send out the minutes of the meeting within 2 days of the meeting date.  Minutes should be an exact duplicate of the written record taken during the meeting.  Sending the minutes out quickly gives people the opportunity to ask questions for clarification before doing outside tasks. (FYI - the RARA book has a reproducible meeting minutes format inside as well as an actions form and meeting evaluation.)
9. Insure all action items are assigned using the 3 W’s with due dates.  Send an action reminder out a few days before the next meeting so people have time to complete actions or prepare a progress status.

If the meeting is to be virtual rather than face-to-face, check out post with links to virtual meeting tips.

Starting a Virtual Team with the Right Membership

In the “Manager’s Guide to Virtual Teams” by Kimball Fisher and Mareen Fisher they state the 3 reasons a virtual team may need to exist are because members: are not located in same office building, may work different shifts or in different time zones, and/or come from varying cultures. Working with virtual teams (a.k.a. GDT) can be hard if the manager has not selected the correct members and does not make the effort required to get all members to work as a team.

In this post, I will focus on summarizing chapter 6 of the book, which is starting up or refocusing a virtual team. The chapter provides tips for 3 typical team start-up activities that can not be skipped for a virtual team, even if they are a temporary project team. The standard activities include:

1. Creating a charter (a.k.a. mission/purpose and results/objectives for team)
2. Defining roles and clarifying responsibilities
3. Establishing operating guidelines (a.k.a. ground rules or team behavior, which in my opinion should include participation in meetings, problem-solving and decision-making processes – the book also suggests some good methods for the last two in later chapters).

Included in this chapter is an activity which I have seen some technical teams optionally put in their operating procedures in order to better work together. It is required for virtual teams as a 4th activity; it is the establishment of technology-use protocols. To save time, I will not write about these 3 team items since it is possible to find many articles on all 3 and find suggested ideas for developing each in many team-building books.

Instead, I would like to paraphrase the attributes that the Fishers believe virtual team members must have, since some of these may be different than the requirements for co-located work or project team members. Here are the attributes to consider for a virtual team member:

• Can work independently with little/no supervision but is not a loner
• Is self-disciplined so that he/she will start and complete tasks
• Will enjoy working on a team and has good interpersonal skills
• Gets good results through use of good judgment and necessary skills
• Is competent in both work/project skills and required technology
• Accepts accountability for self and work responsibilities

In the “Manager’s Guide to Virtual Teams”, the authors also stress the importance of orientation for new members, team training, appropriate training for all in necessary business-related skills, and taking time to celebrate as a team. Continuous learning is encouraged with team-building activities in both live and web/video meetings as key to helping the virtual members feel more like a part of a team. They suggest doing short easy relationship-building activities at least monthly in virtual meetings and then do other types of team-building at event or meeting dates when the group gets together at the same location.

For more from the book, see my next post on Assessing the Effectiveness of a Virtual Team Leader.

Best Time to Hold a Meeting

Do you ever ask the question "When is the best time to hold a meeting?"  Some time ago, I answered this question in an article on best meeting length and time of day in relation to corporate culture, participant availability, and type of meeting.  This advice still holds true, however there may be more to think about  now, due to technology and research.

Recently there have been productivity studies showing the part of the workday when people are best at decision-making or being creative.  This information is typically used to help plan a daily schedule and to do's for effective time management.  However, this same data may be key to planning meetings, as well.  The studies show that people are most alert during the morning and it is a good time to make decisions, work on major projects or logistical items. Consider the type of meeting you are having, if it is for decision-making, consider planning the meeting in the morning.  Studies also shows people are more creative in the afternoon. This indicates that free-flowing meetings for brainstorming, problem-solving, design, process mapping, or discussion should be planned for the afternoon.  Get the creative stuff done in the afternoon with your group, and if decisions can be postponed plan a shorter meeting the next morning.  This allows participants time to review the minutes and think about things before jumping to fast on a quick solution. 

Before deciding on a time to hold your meeting, first determine if the meetings is really necessary.  Information sharing can easily be done via email instead of a meeting.  Most meetings work better face-to-face, but virtual meetings are a good alternative when the participants are not all located in the same building. 

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Assessing the Effectiveness of a Virtual Team Leader

In a previous post, we looked at members of virtual teams using information from the book “Manager’s Guide to Virtual Teams .” This post provides a summary of the sample self-assessment based on the 7 competencies of effective virtual team leaders in the book. This mini-assessment is for managers to use to decide if they are ready to lead a virtual team. If this assessment shows the manager is lacking in any area, they can use the book and other tools to fill-in the missing pieces for a more successful team.

To take the assessment, rate yourself by asking the questions below and answering using this scale:
4 = Always , 3 = Frequently, 2 = Sometimes, 1 = Never
Any areas in which a potential leader has a score less than 3 may imply a need for research and learning on the part of the future virtual team leader.

1. Leader

• Help the team understand what it is responsible for?
• Respond to communication from team members within 24 hours?
• Empower the team by ensuring it has the authority, resources, and accountability it needs?
• Provide effective interventions for teams, including face-to-face meetings on a regular basis?          (See my next post for an activity to jump start team meetings.)
• Ensure effective information-sharing, problem-solving, and decision-making processes are in place?
• Manage by sharing info/data, not by unnecessary rules and regulations?

 2. Results Catalyst

• Focus on results?
• Clearly state the limits within which the team can make decisions?
• Actively support team decisions that are within stated boundaries?
• Strive to manage by guiding principles rather than policy only?
• Make sure the team establishes and uses operating guidelines?
• Establish clear performance goals and metrics jointly with the team and discusses regularly?

3. Facilitator 

• Model good meeting preparation and facilitation?
• Help the team use effective decision-making processes?
• Sensitive to group dynamics and deals effectively with dysfunctional behaviors?
• Help the team solve problems; ensures the use of problem-solving tools?                                     (Problem types include: Technical, People, and Business)

4. Barrier Buster

• Actively work to remove unnecessary, policies, procedures, and practices that hinder team performance?
• Correct differences between what the company says it wants people to do and what it rewards people for doing?
• Work with team members to help them overcome feelings of isolation?
• Help the team to understand, recognize, and manage different kinds of conflict?
• Recognize when he/she is a barrier to the team and takes action for improvement?

5. Business Analyzer 

•  Communicate information about what is happening in other parts of the organization?
•  Ensure team members know how to use communication technology effectively?
•  Act like serving the customer is the most important priority?
•  Discuss specific data about with the team on a frequent basis?
    (Data includes: Product/Service performance, Competitors, and Finances)

6. Coach

• Build problem-solving skills in and transfer responsibility to others by asking questions rather than giving answers?
• Ensure team members have effective ways to communicate with each other?
• Allocate time and money for training and development activities?
• Deal with poor performance appropriately?
• Exhibit good feedback skills and teach the skills to team members?
• Ensure the team develops and uses appropriate technology protocols?
• Technology includes email, phone, web meeting/conference tools, etcetera?

7. Living Example

• Provide a personal example of the way people act in a team setting?
• Admit mistakes freely and openly?
• Follow through on agreements?
• Willing to do things that are personally inconvenient if it helps the team?
• Will do what is right even if it may be disruptive to personal career goals?
• Behave consistently with corporate values and ethics?

Besides the assessment, another suggestion to team leaders from the book I found interesting was the flipping of the traditional weekly progress report. Not only do the team members send reports to managers or update the team project plan, the leader sends a report to the members of what he/she is doing for team and provides advance notice of when he/she is available/unavailable.

The above assessment is an excerpt from chapter 3 of the book “Manager’s Guide to Virtual Teams” authors Kimball Fisher and Mareen Fisher , copyright 2011 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Permission to reprint was granted by the publisher.  
Disclaimer: McGraw Hill makes no representation or warranties as to the accuracy of any information contained in the McGraw-Hill material, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall McGraw-Hill have any liability to any party for special, incidental, tort, or consequential damages arising out of or in connection with the McGraw-Hill Material, even if McGraw-Hill has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
See also To Be Productive blog Disclaimer at bottom of site.

Ten Tips for Wonderful Webinars

Webinars are a great way to share knowledge or give presentations to multiple audiences at one time.  People from multiple locations can connect at the same time to hear your message without travel requirements or tie zone issues.  Consider webinars as an e-learning option for training and as a marketing tool for sales prospecting.  Below are ten tips to help you have a problem-free webinar.

10 Tips for Wonderful Webinars

1. Select a webinar platform.  If the organization hosting the webinar does not have a webinar/virtual meeting provider, you will need to research ones that might fit your need.  Most platforms offer a free short trial period you may use to host a small webinar to get started.
2. Alleviate technical issues.  Presenters should use a landline connection over WIFI option to prevent possible downtime. For the best voice sound, use a microphone headset rather than the mic inside your computer.  Turn off any pop-up notifications to prevent distractions during presentation.  Also be in a room where there will be no background noises or voices to interfere with the audio.  
3. Have a technical assistant or moderator, if possible.  This allows the presenter to  concentrate on delivering content rand answering questions over clicking on the computer.  Verify with each other when the pre-webinar check-in time together will be , presentation expectations, and any post-webinar activities.
4. Provide a short speaker bio, if you have a moderator who will be introducing the webinar.  This is especially important if there will be several speakers in a panel or webinar series.  It gives the moderator relevant data on presenter to share before introducing the current topic.
5. Keep it short at 30-60 minutes, but no more than two hours.  People get tired of staring at a screen even if the topic is absorbing.  If your message requires more time, consider making it a multi-part series over a few weeks instead of a long session.
6. Promote the webinar.  Webinars target to a specific group should be communicated via email to target audience.  Open webinars may be marketed via email and/or on social media.
7. Have a photo of the presenter to include with bio and show on introductory/closing slides.  This way the audience knows what you look like.  This will allow you to skip having a presenter camera on you when you are speaking.  Presenter cameras are geared for emulating face-to-face meetings, not for presentations where speaker may be glancing down at notes or on-line ressonses.
8. Prepare a slide show for display during the webinar that is interesting and informative.  Keep slide text as concise as possible, use appropriate statistics,  have relevant graphics often, and use animations/transitions to get attention.  In virtual presentations there is no eye-contact so you will need show more slides and spend less talking time per slide than if you awee doing a live presentation.You may want to give the audience the option of downloading a copy of the slid es to follow-along and make notes.
9. Practice your presentation for attention-getting delivery and with your assistant for technical delivery.  With the technical practice session, include testing pauses for: audience to read statistics or graphs, taking polls, giving quizzes, and answering questions.  
10. Consider recording the webinar so that people unable to attend the original virtual session or missed part of a series has the option of watching at a later date.  You may want to limit the amount of time the recording is available to eliminate the possibility of people seeing out-of-date information.

Meeting Application for Smart Phones

In my book R,A!R.A! A Meeting Wizard’s Approach (available on Amazon #ad), I share tips for preparing and evaluating meetings, as well as how to run them effectively and efficiently.   Because I am a certified meeting facilitator and author of various business books, I get asked to recommend technical solutions in addition to the meeting leadership and participation guidelines found in my book. For that reason I wrote the post on evaluating meeting planning and measurement tools that are free on the internet since not many people know about the options I listed.  Most people already know about holding meetings with internet tools like GoToMeeting, Skype, and WebEx, so I just encourage them to improve their virtual meetings with tips and toolsfrom my book and articles. Now I will share a new tool businesses may be interested in.

The video below introduces an easy-to-use application for meetings and webinars called ThinkRite Assistant.  This application could be very handy for field sales team meetings as the sales representatives can easily join meetings when on-the-road from their mobile phone.  This solution may also be a good fit for global project teams who must collaborate virtually rather than physically.  The option to use a smart phone for checking into webinars also makes this app a great way to make sure continuous learning is available to off-site employees who are not able to come to a central location for seminars and training classes.  After watching the video and if you are interested in learning more, review the website at http://www.thinkrite.com/.

Comparison of Terms for Robert's Rules of Order and Meeting Wizard’s RARA Process

After asking if Robert’sRules are valid for your meeting, a need to show the differences in process and terms in a more easy-to-read format has come to light.  Roles are often the same, just different names.  Below are three comparison charts to illustrate the differences and similarities.

POST SHORT URL - https://tinyurl.com/25y6act3

History

RONR	RARA
Designed in 1876 for government use and later adapted for societies, 11th edition on Amazaon #ad published 2011	Evolved out of quality improvement and team building efforts in business 1980-1990 then RARA book on Amazon #ad published in 2003 – new release coming  2019

Process Summaries

RONR Process	RARA Process
Formal and strict structure	Informal but adheres to set agenda
Requires motion and 2nd to debate/discuss, if no 2nd then no discussion	Team agrees to discuss issues/solutions or not
Suggests quorum to call for majority vote, minority is allowed to debate/discuss prior to call for vote	Allows for multiple decision-making methods (consensus, majority, ranking, etc.)
Committees do or arrange outside work and report progress	Team members do/arrange outside work and report their progress
Gavel is used to mark meeting progress or gain attention	Facilitator encourages group back to agenda
Includes process to discipline disruptions and problems during meeting time	Suggested methods for handling typical disruptions in meeting
Speaking time per person limited to 10 minutes for small groups and typically 2 minutes each for large groups – also an individual may be limited to speaking 2 times during a debate/discussion	Presentation time is limited to what is set on agenda and individual speaking time during discussion on set topic may be set before discussion begins

Possible Roles

RONR Roles	RARA Roles
Chair/President	Facilitator
Secretary/Clerk or Historian	Recorder, aka Record-Keeper
Assembly/Officers and Members	Members
Guest (cannot vote)	Observer (cannot vote)
Sergeant –at-arms or Doorkeeper or Parliamentarian	Gatekeeper or Timekeeper (optional)
Speaker/Lecturer	Talker, aka Presenter
Treasurer (if $) or Teller (vote-counter)

Most Used Terms

RONR Terms	RARA Terms
Adjourn	Close/Closing
Amend/Amendment(s)	Change/Combine/Clarify
Call to Order	Open/Opening
Debate	Discuss
Decorum	Code of Conduct or Ground Rules
Floor
Minutes	Records/Minutes
Motion/Move                    EXAMPLE IN MINUTES
New Business	Open Time
Order of Business/Order of the Day/Program	Agenda (3T)
Point
Program	Presentation
Recess	Break
Refer/Commit to Committee (or person)	Action Item (3W)
Resolution/Resolved        2-PART DESCRIPTION
Roll Call
RONR = Rules of Order Newly Revised	RARA = Roles, Agenda, Records, Actions
Table/Postpone	Put in Parking Lot
Unfinished/Old Business	Next Agenda or pull from Parking Lot
Unanimous/General Consent	Consensus
Vote/Decision	Decision-making methods

Meeting Types

RONR Meetings	RARA Meetings
Annual
Board/Executive
Committee	Sub-team
Regular
Special	6 types
Electronic (specified method other than face-to-face in bylaws) – added in 11th edition	4 methods – 2019 update to include newer virtual methods and tips