Effective advice for a successful and more productive online meeting in 2020

 Effective advice for a successful and more productive online meeting in 2020

Effective advice for a successful and more productive online meeting

Telecom became a vital tool in this period after companies turned to work from home, and during the Corona pandemic all ways of communicating

 both at work and in personal life via the Internet, and whether you're working with a remote company or working independently, you need to know the most important advice that helps you make a successful online meeting.

It's these tips that will enable you to take full advantage of these meetings, rather than be a huge waste of time, and then regret not taking steps that will help you take advantage of them.

In an earlier article, we explained how the Online meeting worked technically, addressing what tools and programs were needed and how they were handled, and some other technical and organizational matters.

In this article, we will address the most important advice and practices that help you manage the meeting effectively.

So if you're working independently and all your communication with your clients on-line, or you have a bunch of employees that you meet at regular intervals, or you even meet on-line for the first time, this 

article is specifically for you, and it's filled with information that will make it easier for you to make the most of the meeting.

Let's start... 

The 12 Most Important Advice for an Effective Online Meeting 

A successful meeting is one from which all individuals have benefited from updates or information that they must know, without any waste of time.

Before we start listing tips, you have to know that these tips are part of them that you will do before the meeting, part during the meeting and part after the meeting.

And all these parts are just as important, so don't imagine that pre-meeting advice is just the most important part, by contrast, every part that complements the rest to be able to achieve a successful online meeting.

Let's start listing tips in detail:

1. Set Agenda 

If you're in charge of the meeting, I know that one of the key parts of the preparation for the meeting is to set an agenda, to help all attendees to be as informed and to keep their focus on priorities, not to move away from them during the discussions.

This advice will contribute to the organization of the meeting and to the knowledge of all individuals as to what will be done, which is essential for all participants to be aware of the points that will be discussed at the meeting, and the objectives that they must reach after these points are made.

When setting an agenda for the work of the Online Meeting, make sure that:

Setting the objectives of the meeting.

Identification of points/topics to be discussed.

Limit the duration of the meeting.

Determining the final exit from the meeting, he focused well on this point, as sometimes the team needs another meeting for the final exit or the outcome they want to achieve.

 

Leave space on the agenda for additions from participants or last - minute questions.

2. Pre-set a leader or supervisor for the meeting

The more participants, the harder it is to know when to speak, where the voices of some participants overlap when they speak at the same time, and we have to repeat what has been said so that everyone can hear it.

So if I was in charge of the meeting, I would appoint a meeting supervisor who would act as traffic and mayhem officer, where people would be allowed to speak in time.

It's not entirely dependent on the "raise the hand" feature provided by meeting programs like Zoom, but there's got to be a supervisor to organize everything that's related to the meeting, so if you're not able to be the leader, put a proper person for the task.

 

The supervisor would rather be someone with high communication skills, who can handle and organize a group of people.

3. Don't wait until the last minutes of the meeting.

You don't need to sit tight for the latest possible time. Go in 10 minutes before the meeting to make sure everything works and the link doesn't have a problem.

Sometimes the meeting supervisor has to stop the meeting slightly because a particular person cannot enter; And that's because he waited until the last minute to open the link, even though if he opened it well in advance, he'd save it.

Unfortunately, this is a waste of meeting time, so make sure you keep your time and that of your participants.

Additional advice: Some of the meetings include details such as a link that needs to be opened and read or read. Prepare yourself in advance and be prepared and not wait for the last moment either to review it.

The meeting supervisor can inquire about points related to these details, if you don't know about them, it would be not good for people to think you don't care about the meeting.

4. Don't eat during the meeting

Sometimes some people treat a meeting as an amusement time, they eat while someone else talks. If you want to be professional, don't do this, 

especially in case your microphone's always open.

It is preferable not to eat until you can focus on all the details that participants talk about and respond to their ideas.

5. Make sure there's a proper background behind you.

In some meetings you'll have to open the camera and talk to the participants, in which case, the background behind you must be appropriate.

For example: You don't sit behind you, it's full of colors, and it also has to be the background that's not distracted for your participants, and it doesn't work to have a background for people who move, so it's going to get the participants to focus with the people who move instead of you.

 

Note: Ready backgrounds are available on meeting programs such as Zoom, in case the background of where you sit is inappropriate to participate with attendees.

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6. Look at the camera when you're talking.

It makes you look at the camera while you're talking professional, and it's going to give the impression that you're paying all your attention to the participants, and that's something that shows your respect for them and their presence. Don't look on the sides or the back when the camera's open.

Note: If you're gonna open the camera, it's gonna have to show your whole face, it's not gonna show up on one side, or it's gonna show up on half your face, it's like you're in a real meeting.

7. Eliminate any noise source

Bear in mind that there are many voices in meetings with more participants than in a personal meeting; Because remote participants come from different places -and each has a microphone.

 

When you open your microphone and around you sounds and other distracting agents; This can make hearing the speaker difficult.

To combat this, do the following:

Before the meeting, look for a quiet environment where you can reduce scattering factors.

Use headphones to reduce background noise and prevent voice reactions.

If you're working with a new program for a procedure that's not familiar to you, do a test before you start meeting online. Get rid of as many noise sources as possible, whether it's a loud fan next to your device or turn the TV on in the background.

You can use noise isolation programs like Krispy, where it gives great results in isolating sounds around you, so participants don't hear any distracting sounds around you. The application can be downloaded or added to the Chrome browser.

And I tried this program personally and it was very useful to me, so we can't always predict any activity or noise that's going to happen around us or outside our house.

8. Test everything well in advance of the meeting

You know that many participants try to figure out the characteristics of meeting programs during the meeting, and that's the worst time to know the characteristics of those programs.

My advice to you here; Take time to get to know him and make sure everything works, which includes: (microphone, headphone, camera, lighting, Internet, of course).

And if you're gonna share a screen with the meeting participants, try it. And make sure to figure out how to start sharing your screen and how to turn it off, if you have a video that you want to provide, make sure it's run properly beforehand.

 

Note: Even if you won't share content on your screen, it's still useful to recognize the program or application features before the meeting starts ,which includes basic functions to be known such as how:

Add contacts.

Join a meeting.

Start the meeting.

Leave or finish the meeting.

Turn on your camera and turn it off.

Keep the sound and bring it back.

Sending messages to participants.

9. Give your family an alert

Last March, Robert Kelly, a Korean earth in a live BBC interview, had his children appear on camera and kept moving and almost ruined the interview, yet that was kind of fun.

Anyone who works remotely will probably understand Robert's position, as there are a lot of surprising things that might happen at the time of the meeting from your family, your kids, or any voices coming from the street.

But creating space around you can reduce some of these surprises. To avoid these :00

Whether you live with your parents or live in a residence with your friends or whatever, make sure they know when you'll be at a meeting. 

That way, you'll avoid embarrassment like that: They walk behind you in a bad way, or they speak loudly in the middle of a meeting. This alarm can be a verbal alert before the meeting, a paper on your room door, or any other way to help you communicate this information to them.

10. Make the most of the lighting and camera angle

You don't need unparalleled lighting in meetings that need to open a camera, on the contrary you need proper lighting, and all you need is to figure out some magic rules for lighting and camera angles.

How to make the most of lighting

1. Avoid backlighting (where the light comes from behind you), because this creates a shadow image effect, and it will make it harder for viewers to see your face.

 

2. The perfect place to put the light source is in front of you, so you should have a lamp somewhere behind your computer. Better yet, if you can put your chair or set your position up to face a window, or if the window is on your left or right, natural lighting from the sun would be a great choice, too.

3. If you want professionalism, you can invest in a Ring Light lamp - it would be familiar to you if you were following YouTube, where YouTube is popular with YouTube users - that kind of lighting contributes to a nice distribution of light on your face.

How to best configure camera angle:

1. The camera angle below your face (which happens when you put the computer right in front of you) is as inappropriate, avoiding it as possible.

2. If you put the camera in a slightly higher position than your face, the angle is more appropriate. You can make that happen by putting your device on a bunch of books.

3. If you're using an external camera, try to put it as close to the computer screen as possible; To look as if you're looking at the participants directly and not looking elsewhere.

This happens frequently as the user puts an external camera away from the screen so that it looks like it's distracted, and the user looks like he's not looking at the other participants.

Remember: Don't worry about your appearance on the video call. The key here is to make sure your colleagues can see your face and eyes clearly so they feel like you're in the same room even if you're not realistic together.

11. Do a quick review of what was addressed at the meeting. 

If you're the meeting supervisor, you better do a quick review of all the points so everyone remembers everything, also when the meeting is about to end, make sure everyone understands everything, and if you've filled them with tasks you can ask everyone to summarize those tasks.

This additional illustration is particularly useful when you can't see facial expressions or body language.

Note: If you've just finished a meeting of many details, and you want to discuss something important that happened, we often react to discussing what happened last. General rule, wait till you get out of the meeting to discuss anything that happened.

12. Share meeting notes with everyone 

Make sure to write notes or summarize the meeting on a file in Google documents or an e - mail, even if you make sure that everyone understands all the points of the meeting and that everyone on common 

ground should make notes even if one participant forgets some details, which can be remembered from the notes.

Make sure that everyone who participated in the meeting has access to it (Full Access), also make sure that it is organized in such a way that it is easily understood by those who read it.

 

This could be another wonderful way to create a common understanding of what's been identified, who is responsible for the tasks 

and what needs to be pursued in the future. And if the meeting supervisor forgets this move and you're a regular participant, you can remind him of it.

In conclusion:

I gave you the advice that I think everyone at Online needs. You can share these tips with your colleagues at the meeting to make sure you're all on the same path.

You'll notice that most of the advice I have focused on keeping your time and that of your fellow participants, because time is the most expensive currency of the day, time cannot be restored.

Through personal experience, what independents regret most is an unhelpful meeting that was just a waste of time, because that time might have been exploited.

As long as you care about organizing your time, I think you'll like this article: Best methods of time management (from the development of experts and researchers).

Now tell us what advice was useful to you and you'll follow at your next meeting.