How to run a virtual team meeting that is effective and productive
If you run a lot of virtual team meetings, you need to know how to make them as productive as possible. And it’s not always as simple as just sending out an invite link and hopping on a call.
Here are a couple simple tips that will take your virtual meetings to the next level.
Get everyone on the same page
You need to ensure everyone is clear on what’s expected of them.
How do you do this?
Agendas and ground rules are key elements to start out with for successful virtual meetings. When it comes to agendas, you need to ensure that the agenda is shorter than how long you expect it to take. Add another 20 minutes to the length you think it will be, because the meeting will likely go on longer than you expect. And with virtual meetings, people often have back-to-back calls scheduled, so you really need to stick to however much time you told them it would take.
Send the agenda out a minimum of 24 hours in advance so that people know what to expect from the meeting.
Then, the ground rules are going to improve your meeting even more! Here are some examples of ground rules for virtual meetings:
- Keep your video on
- Mute your sound when you’re not talking
- If technology issues arise, embrace the messiness!
- If you accidentally leave the meeting, just hop right back in.
Having these ground rules sets up the expectation so that everyone can stay on the same page!
Get everyone involved
Getting everyone involved will help with accountability and participation in the meeting.
How do you get everyone involved?
You can assign a notetaker, a timekeeper, or ask someone to come up with an icebreaker and lead it at the start of the meeting. Another great idea to get everyone involved is to try to get everyone’s thoughts on the information being presented at the meeting. If you have the time to go around in a round-robin fashion, this works really well to get everyone’s input and hear from people who might naturally be a bit quieter.
Tips on preparation and technology
These aren’t the only tips you need to run a successful virtual meeting. If you want a couple more simple tips that will really help you take your meetings to the next level, join me over on YouTube to see the video I’ve created that dives even deeper into this topic!
I really hope that you found this helpful – and if you did, it would mean so much to me if you would share it on your social media.
Every manager has to take on projects, so a great place to start as a new manager is learning some project management skills. If you’re a new manager, do consider taking my SLAY Project Management online course where I show you step-by-step how to successfully manage a project, plus you get access to every template you will need, along with detailed video instructions on how to fill them out.
-Adriana
