effective meeting management for virtual teams

or please don’t invite me to Zoom with you just because you’re bored… 

Virtual meetings have become a new way of life. We’re used to checking in with colleagues from our sofas, using the ‘mute’ button so our boss doesn’t hear next door’s building works, and popping into the kitchen for a quick brew before joining another meeting.  

With teams spread across different locations it can be even harder than usual to organise an effective meeting. How many times have you attended, or let’s be honest, organised, a meeting that hadn’t given enough thought to its true purpose and desired outcomes? How many meetings do you attend now where you suspect the organiser just wanted someone to talk to? 

Meetings have long been a very visible clue to the culture of an organisation: you can tell a lot about the prevalent behaviours, the hierarchies at play, the decision-making processes, the power bases, and how effective and efficient an organisation is. And now, those clues to an organisational culture are magnified in sometimes uncomfortable ways as we look at each other through new virtual eyes. It’s time to do something about it. 

Outlined below is a structured approach to meeting management which will help bring people together more than just physically or virtually, helping you to harness the group situation to gain momentum towards your goals. Change your meetings from being a potential distress flare about your organisational culture and instead make them a driver for change. 

Take time making a plan 

Just because everyone turns up at the same time doesn’t mean they are all going to be engaged in the content of the meeting. Using a structured approach to plan and execute all meetings in the same way, regardless of content ensures attendees know in advance what is expected of them. 

Booking a meeting and inviting the attendees sounds simple and so it should be, but how many meetings have you been in where either you had no contribution to make or those who could influence decisions were not invited? And online, it’s even harder to manage everybody’s contributions so it’s critical you have the right people focused on the right topic. 

You can’t know who to invite until you’re very clear on the objectives of the meeting, so start by setting objectives which are visible to all attendees: this way everyone knows why you are asking for their time. 

Plan and assign agenda items and timings. Again, it’s not rocket science, but we’ve all been in meetings which have over-run because they haven’t been planned properly. Set out a clear plan for the time you have, work out in advance how much time each item will take and who is leading each item on the agenda. It will soon become clear if you are trying to pack too much into one meeting and you’ll avoid the annoyance of always missing out half the agenda because the first part of the meeting overran. 

Send the agenda and objectives out with the meeting invite, let your attendees know exactly what is expected of them before the meeting. 

Proactive meeting management 

Open the meeting by reviewing the previous meeting’s actions or next steps, if you have any. That way, your meetings are driving pace and progress and holding people to account. Then review the objectives you set when you planned your meeting and collect expectations from attendees at the start. This ensures everyone is engaged and invested in the meeting from the start. The aim here is to turn all attendees into active participants. It is of course easier if you can visibly share next steps, objectives and expectations on screen so that there is collective agreement and understanding. 

Use the timings from the planning phase to keep the meeting on track. Don’t be afraid to move on once the stated time is up. Attendees are likely to stay engaged if they know the meeting will keep to time. 

Confirm decisions made and assign next steps against agenda items as you go. This isn’t about ‘taking the minutes’, this is about recording just the essential information to drive action and, again, making sure that everyone knows who is accountable for what action. This avoids any nasty surprises later on. 

At the end of the meeting take the time to review progress against the original objectives and expectations and to assign next steps to complete any unresolved actions. If the group decides than the objectives were not met, work out how you get there. 

Close the meeting formally 

Take the time to ask the attendees for their feedback. Divide these into benefits and concerns. How do people feel about the meeting? What are the benefits they can identify from what was discussed? This focuses everyone on the positives and encourages attendees to reflect on the content of the meeting before moving on. 

Ask also about any concerns they may have, for a virtual workforce this is more important than ever. Make sure attendees have a chance to voice their concerns and take time to assign next steps to address them. Team members will be more likely to participate actively in meetings where they know their voices are heard and their concerns taken seriously. 

Next steps 

If you are in the middle of a project or find that the initial meeting didn’t cover all the items on the agenda create a meeting series so that all previous and subsequent meetings and next steps and decisions are linked. Address Benefits and Concerns in your planning for the next meeting and refer to the next steps and decisions taken previously. 

A previous version of this article first appeared in Personnel Today 

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