It’s finally becoming a virtual world
Posted by Anna Eggleton on May 24, 2012
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With pressure on budgets, time efficiencies and the need for global solutions we are finding that we are increasingly running meetings and insight generation activities virtually. However as with face to face meetings the secret to success is in good planning. A couple of tips that we have found useful:
Share before the meeting – its a good idea to share profiles of team participants prior to the meeting so that everyone knows who each member is and what their strengths might be – sharing photos and biographys really helps to make meetings less faceless and to increase dialogue and trust.
Set clear objectives and have clear processes – what is the purpose of the meeting, what will sucess look like. Its even more important than in face to face meetings that everyone knows what they are trying to achieve and that someone is organising how to meet this goal.
Be clear if the meeting is about information sharing or dialogue – different tools are good for sharing: such as webcasts. Other tools are better for dialogue: Webex can be great for collecting comments and votes.
Share before meetings - virtual meetings are more successful if everyone is on a level playing field in terms of information. Give everyone the opportunity before the meeting to read and digest so that the meeting can be used to disscuss and move forward.
Level the playing field – if its going to be virtual make it virtual for everyone don’t have a few people dialing in from other markets – they will feel marginalised and it will be likely the meeting will not be set up in a way that makes it easy for them to contribute.
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