You may have facilitated a fantastic online meeting where you engaged participants, made important decisions and made progress on your most important projects; however, the real test of a “good” meeting happens after the meeting is over. Once you have had a good meeting, it is critically important to follow-up as quickly as possible to […]
Your meeting is as good as your follow up Read More »
As we discussed in our online meeting facilitation tip #1, knowing our meeting purpose is essential to figuring out who needs to participate and how long we need to meet. We have a tendency to schedule most meetings for an hour and then figure out what we are going to talk about within that time
Do we really need to meet for an hour? Read More »
Most of the blog posts in this online meeting facilitation series are related to engagement. We want to foster and encourage engagement in order to make the most out of our online meetings but we cannot often tell if folks are engaged or if they have lost interest and started online shopping or checking their
The importance of a good “chat” Read More »
As we facilitate meetings, it can be difficult to engage our participants and keep them engaged (especially if it is a particularly long meeting!). One of the strategies that has helped participants stay engaged is to call on people directly – in a kind and encouraging way. It definitely takes courage as a facilitator and
Choosing courage over comfort Read More »
We have all been on conference calls or online meetings where someone put us on “hold” and the music blasted through the meeting audio. We have also all been part of meetings with barking dogs, screaming children, flushing toilets, lawn mowers mowing and all sorts of other background noises. While it definitely helps us be
You don’t really want to hear everyone all of the time! Read More »
When leading a small group online meeting (2-7 people), the ability to move forward well toward your meeting purpose can be dependent upon whether you can “see” one another. This “tip” gets more pushback than any others. And when you lead larger meetings or webinars, it is particularly helpful for those who are speaking to
Be Brave: Show your Video! Read More »
While I know that many of us have grown a bit weary with video and online meetings right now, depending upon your meeting purpose, they can still help us work together in similar ways to being in the same room. One of the aspects that helps the most with a productive online meeting is sharing
Can you see what I see? Read More »
When we are in person, we often have “ground rules, guiding principles or working agreements” that help us set expectations for participation. It’s important to set expectations for your online meetings too! Those who know me well have been in enough online meetings with me that they know I’m going to ask them to show
Set expectations about participation Read More »
When we facilitate an in-person meeting, most folks expect to have some kind of on-site support. Someone will help with registration, take notes, there might be an IT person to troubleshoot technology challenges and you may even have additional facilitators. When you facilitate an online meeting, sometimes folks make the mistake of trying to do
Garner support from your team Read More »
It seems obvious that we would need to identify our meeting purpose, but sometimes we can get into a place right now where the “shoulds” start to get us. We “should” meet, we “should” make sure folks are ok, we “should” keep being as productive as we were in the past. Why those voices may
Be clear about your meeting purpose Read More »