Š 2017 Antoni Lacinai & Mike Darmell Virtual Meetings. Set them up. Lead them well. Reach your goals. Edited by John Mattock Design and cover illustration: Pia Lilenthal Illustrations: Antoni Lacinai Photograph: Petra Kyllerman Published and printed by BoD ISBN: 978-91-7699-472-6
”Virtual meetings… so what?” ................................................................... 11 Who are the we?........................................................................................ 15 What do we mean by…?............................................................................ 17 Video meetings ..................................................................................... 17 Phone meetings .................................................................................... 17 Webcast................................................................................................ 17 Webinar................................................................................................ 17 Shared desktop ..................................................................................... 17 Synchronous communication................................................................ 17 Asynchronous communication.............................................................. 18 What are the experts’ views? ..................................................................... 19 Pros and cons of virtual meetings .............................................................. 21 When to meet virtually and when to meet physically ................................ 23 1. General advice on meetings ................................................................. 25 Make time for planning ......................................................................... 27 Decide the purpose and the goal of the meeting .................................... 28 Purpose ................................................................................................ 29 Goal ..................................................................................................... 30 Plan your milestones ............................................................................. 31 Prepare the right methods… to suit the meeting ..................................... 32 Be on time ............................................................................................ 33 See and smile........................................................................................ 34 Agree on your meeting rules.................................................................. 35 In longer meetings: have some breaks and energisers in the plan............ 36 Create participation and interaction ...................................................... 37 Give information asynchronously. Treat information synchronously. ...... 38 Finish on time ....................................................................................... 38 Summarize and reflect .......................................................................... 39 Do what you agreed to do ..................................................................... 39
2. General advice regardless of virtual technology................................... 41 Send a gentle reminder.......................................................................... 43 Cultivate the relation and not just the question at hand .......................... 44 Maintain full focus in the virtual meeting............................................... 45 To multitask or not to multitask? That is the question... ........................... 47 What are we doing during a phone meeting? ......................................... 49 Be on time… right on time! ................................................................... 49 Keep time zones in mind ....................................................................... 50 Sit in different locations......................................................................... 50 Don’t have any disturbances around you ............................................... 51 Learn the technology well ..................................................................... 51 Get good stuff – for everyone................................................................. 52 Make game rules including the use of technology.................................. 52 Don’t get too attached to one technology .............................................. 52 Keep track of who is speaking – and who isn’t........................................ 53 Keep it short.......................................................................................... 54 Utilise asynchronous communication ................................................... 54 3. Meeting tips for different types of virtual technology........................... 57 Tips for the phone meeting .................................................................... 59 Tips for the video meeting ..................................................................... 62 Tips for the web meeting (webinar) ........................................................ 64 Tips for email ........................................................................................ 66 Questions regarding voicemail and SMS................................................ 68 Adapted methods for virtual meetings.................................................... 69 Brainwriting .................................................................................... 69 The decision meeting ...................................................................... 69 Shared goal/purpose/vision etc ........................................................ 71 Our final thoughts...................................................................................... 73 A special thank-you.................................................................................... 73 More books by us....................................................................................... 77