What is Virtual meeting

In this piece of writing we will provide you the awareness about How to conduct a virtual meeting its preparation and What to avoid and home office meeting?

The virtual meeting is a digital meeting in which two or more people meet through some online platform to address and discuss professional topics.

This online meeting usually takes place through videoconferences or video calls , through services such as Skype , Zoom and even WhatsApp .

Recently, due to the changes caused by the appearance of covid-19 , many organizations moved many, if not all, of their meetings to these online formats.

A virtual meeting focuses on:

• Address day-to-day problems
• Organize tasks and projects
• Define strategies
• Take decisions
• Exchange information and knowledge
• Coordinate various issues that influence the growth of organizational development.

How to prepare for an virtual meeting?

Planning and preparation are essential for the meeting to be productive and for you to be able to assertively resolve outstanding issues . So check out the following points and use them to create a checklist and guarantee more results in the call.

1-Set a goal and identify what needs to be resolved

Before inviting employees, it is necessary to be clear about the objectives of the meeting and the points that need to be defined together. To do this, draw up an agenda and, if necessary, ask participants to do previous tasks.

2-Prepare visual aids

Another point that must be checked is the need for presentations and visual aids. Depending on the purpose, these features can help a lot in understanding facts and data , especially when they refer to numbers.

Thus, if you notice the need for this type of complement, it is important to take the time to prepare the presentation in advance, always looking for a language that does not leave the content boring or plastered.

3-Determine a duration time

Despite being important, meetings can end up disrupting the routine of employees, so they must be scheduled on strategic dates and times and have a pre-established duration. Setting this time is a good strategy to stay focused and ensure that planning is followed more strictly.

What to avoid in an virtual meeting?

Some actions can end up making the meeting stick and become a society. This circumstance helps to avoid unnecessary risks. In the case of hospitals, organic waste of time, both for managers and employees. Therefore, it is ideal that you seek to avoid them. Below, we list some of these errors.

1-Lack of focus in discussions

Loss of focus is one of the main causes of an unproductive meeting, because when we bring together too many people, it is common for the main topic to end up deviating. To avoid this problem, it is essential to align the objectives of the call right at the beginning of the meeting and note down other topics that may arise so that they can be discussed at another time.

2-Absence of a manager to conduct the agenda

Designating a person to lead the meeting is also very important. When there is no mediator, it is common for people to end up losing focus or spending too much time on inconclusive topics . Therefore, the manager must be the person responsible for maintaining a line of reasoning and following the proposed agenda and plan.

3-Lack of technical preparation

Technical issues can also end up impacting meeting productivity . Losing a lot of time due to a bad internet connection, for example, makes you disrupt the employees’ routine or even lose their attention .

In addition, it is important to ensure a good image and audio, looking for a quiet and distraction-free place , both for you and for the other participants.

How to make the home office meeting more productive?

If even face-to-face meetings run the risk of not being productive, in remote work this is even more potent . Therefore, it is important to follow some tips to ensure that this time will be spent to the best advantage.

1-covers punctuality

It is normal for some unforeseen delays to occur, but it is important that participants strive so that the lack of punctuality does not recur . For this, it is important to talk to the whole team and make it clear how the lack of commitment can end up jeopardizing the team as a whole.

2-Only invite professionals who are essential

Have you ever heard the phrase “ this meeting could have been an email ”? The meeting can often become a waste of time, especially for people who don’t need to be there and who feel that their presence is unnecessary.

Thus, it is important that the manager proposes meetings only when he notices the real need and that he only invites employees who need to participate in that event. To do this, keep in mind that meetings with fewer participants tend to be more focused, human language. The objective and allow each person to express themselves more clearly.

3-set priorities

It is possible that the time set for the meeting is not enough to cover all the necessary topics. Therefore, it is essential that the manager is able to set priorities. Thus, the ideal is to prioritize issues of high importance and that are relevant to many people, in order to quickly try to solve less serious issues.

4-Document everything that was said

A meeting is not productive if everything that was talked about simply goes in one ear and out the other. That’s why it’s important to document everything that was discussed and align topics with the team .

In addition to reinforcing information, this type of documentation will also be useful for people who were not at the meeting, allowing them to update themselves on the subject and understand the actions and strategies that will be taken next.