Moving Meetings to Virtual: 7 Guidelines for Increasing Connection

With the disruption caused by COVID19, many companies are facing choices about how to adjust their plans for long meetings, conferences, and programs as in-person connection is no longer feasible. Teams are migrating to working remotely and reliance on virtual platforms is increasing. While it is very possible to have high-value meetings virtually, there are some core principles to keep in mind. Simply taking what you would do in person and trying to do it online will NOT work!

Work happens through our conversations and relationships. When we meet in person, we talk, we connect, we work through things together, we strengthen our relationships, we share ideas, have insights, and coordinate our follow up actions. With a little creativity, virtual meetings can do the same thing, as long as we design them for human connection.

Here are some guidelines to note as you brainstorm how to (re-)design your meetings for virtual connection:

1. 90 minutes per session maximum: People simply cannot sit and stare into a computer screen for an entire day. We recommend limiting sessions to 90 minutes followed by at minimum a 30-minute break. Emphasize conversation over presentation by limiting presentation segments to 10 minutes followed by time for reflection, discussion, comment or questions. You can have multiple 90-minute sessions in a day, as long as you create these breaks along the way.
2. Use breakout rooms to increase conversation time: The more you can maximize each person’s opportunity to contribute and to be in conversation, the more engaging and successful your meeting will be. 20 people on a call allows some voices to dominate and others to disappear into the background. Mixing up breakout rooms with 2-5 people each for small group discussions, then returning to the larger “room” to share with the whole group can be highly participatory and valuable.
3. Use some of the sessions for working groups: Breaking up big group sessions with smaller “working groups” in a separate 90-minute video session (or whatever length works) creates space for focus on specific projects. This is a great way to get a lot done, split up the work, and increase engagement.
4. Use whiteboards and chat to engage people in different ways: People think and learn differently, and our in-person meetings don’t often engage the non-auditory folks as well as they could. Smart and creative use of digital whiteboards and chat (found in platforms like Skype, Zoom, and many more) allow people to participate in different ways other than speaking. For example, a quieter person can put something smart into a chat that is then picked up by the group in ways they likely never would have in person.
5. Share the learning: So much of how we coordinate our work together happens implicitly by being part of conversations with our team. It is very important that breakout groups and subgroups, when they rejoin the larger group, take the time to record and share what they learned together in their conversations along with the thinking behind their choices. Our 7-Step Adjust Protocol can be helpful in what questions you should be answering together.
6. Mix people up: Although the temptation is often to split people up by workgroups or function, there are often very surprising results when you deliberately include someone who is from a completely different group or way of thinking. Virtual sessions make this possible in a surprisingly provocative way. Especially for longer meetings, periodically take people and have them join the breakout of another group, if only for half the time. They will not only contribute to their new group but will also bring back new learnings to their usual team.
7. Be creative: The methods for engaging and effective virtual meetings are limited only by your imagination. The ideas and methods we’ve listed here are just a start, meant to spark your thinking. Be on the lookout for jumping straight to method (the how) of what you will do, and always first be clear about your Purpose for meeting and the Outcomes you would like to meet. Then, and only then, ask yourself what conversations need to happen, who needs to be in them, and how you can creatively put people together virtually in conversations and activities to make an impact.

If you want our help putting all of this to work for a meeting you’re planning, you can reach us here.