You undoubtedly hold a lot of virtual meetings given that the pandemic is still driving so many workers to work from home. But do you execute them properly? Working from home now become the new normal for many and we want to ensure that you are hosting your online meetings properly.
Here are the top five mistakes to avoid when doing an online meeting:
Mistake 1: Neglecting one or more of the "big five" success keys of online meetings
If your goal is to get people together to coordinate activities, share information, find solutions, make choices, or just socialize, you will be successful if you:
Have a distinct goal
Put the participants' minds at ease
Activate their entire behavioral engagement
Include high-quality information that is in line with the goal
Make participation simple
If you do all of these correctly, then you will have a successful online meeting. If you do not, then there will be some inefficiency and awkwardness.
Mistake 2: Holding voice calls instead of video calls
The efficacy of online meetings will increase by at least 200 percent when everyone has their cameras on. Because they are aware that what they are doing is evident to everyone else, this keeps people interested. One of the biggest barriers to audience engagement is multitasking, which they are less likely to do.
Mistake 3: Failing to be Strategic about Sequencing
A restatement of the meeting's goal ought to be the first item on the agenda. After that, plan out the timing of your actions. For example:
Deal with any "elephant in the room" issues as soon as possible to avoid distractions.
If you have any fun or exciting news to make, you might want to save it for the end. This will build suspense by letting the participants know what is coming while keeping the outcome a secret.
Put a contentious item on the agenda in the middle of the list to get everyone warmed up and feeling productive before tackling the contentious subject.
Mistake 4: Not giving your people an active role
One person can provide information, facilitate questions, keep the meeting on schedule, and take notes, but why? Try to assign participants to the notes of the facilitator (charged with directing the meeting's agenda), presenter (charged with presenting specific content unites), timekeeper (who keeps track of the clock and notifies facilitators and presenters when it's time to adjust their pace and content), and notetaker (who records the meeting).
Mistake 5: Failing to take advantage of breakouts
Most of the talking is typically done by just five to seven individuals in meetings with more than eight persons. This is the reason why it is a great idea to break out into teams during the meeting so that they can come up with ideas, work on items that require prioritization, action planning, and then come back into the larger group and report on the work that they did.
These are just a few common errors that people commit. There are plenty of others. The good news is that most of these are simple enough to avoid once you become aware of them. Luckily, if you use Kwivrr as your online meeting platform - you'll have one less thing to worry about for your online meeting. Kwivrr's powerful online meeting tools allow you to control the experience, take notes in the comments and so much more. Try Kwivrr for your next online meeting!