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Virtual team meetings are part and parcel of remote working and leading a virtual team. For that reason, it’s vital that you feel confident in setting up and leading virtual team meetings. If heading up a virtual team meeting leaves you feeling a little overwhelmed, we’re here to help! In this helpful guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about confidently leading virtual team meetings and getting the most out of your remote team!
First things first, before you schedule your virtual team meeting into the diary, you need to choose which platform you will use. There are a wide variety of online meeting tools available that make getting your virtual team together quicker, easier and more collaborative for everyone.
When choosing the right online meeting platform, it’s important to consider what functionality you’ll need for the meeting to be successful. For example, will you need to share screens with your colleagues? Or perhaps you need to work on a document together or share a presentation? If that is the case, a platform which enables screen sharing is a must!
Teams that work face-to-face very easily build rapport, which will carry over into virtual team meetings. However, for teams who only work remotely, this kind of camaraderie isn’t easily built without a little helping hand. For this reason, if you’re regularly leading virtual team meetings it’s a good idea to do what you can to help team members feel comfortable with each other in order to create a more relaxed, collaborative environment.
There are a number of ways that you can do this. One is through hosting virtual team building events. These fun virtual activities are a great way to bring down barriers and help colleagues get to know each other in a more relaxed setting. Alongside team building, you should also make time every day to touch base with your team and have them chat with one another via a video call. All of this will do the groundwork for more engaged, productive virtual team meetings in the future.
Prior to your virtual team meeting, you should create a clear agenda which includes key points, meeting structure, who will be in attendance, any preparation that is needed, and any relevant documents or information. This ensures that everyone is on the same page when they sit down for the meeting and they are clear on its subject and purpose.
You should also ensure that everyone is clear about how they should conduct themselves in the virtual meeting. For example, do you require that all in attendance have their camera on? How would you like people to contribute? Should everyone mute their audio unless they are speaking? Knowing all of this prior to the meeting will save a lot of time and ensure everyone is able to focus on the important information, rather than getting distracted by logistics, background noise or technical issues.
Keeping attendees engaged in a virtual meeting is much more challenging than face to face meetings. That means you need to ensure that your virtual team stays present from start to finish. With that in mind, leave some room in virtual team meetings for casual conversations and catching up. Make sure everyone introduces themselves before starting and attendees are invited to contribute as and when appropriate. In larger meetings, it’s easy for introverts or those less confident to get lost in the fray and potentially become disengaged or distracted. Your job is to make sure that everyone has an active role within the meeting, rather than expecting them to be passive listeners.
Don’t think of your team meetings as just an hour or more of you talking to your colleagues. Plan ahead and include lots of opportunities to engage with attendees, share information and ask for opinions. Your agenda will help with this as team members will be prepped for the subject and what to expect from proceedings, leading to an engaging, informative and productive team meeting!
Finally, when your online team meeting is over, ask for feedback! This can be done in a multitude of ways, formal or not. For example, you may choose to ask a colleague in a one-on-one conversation about how they think it went. Alternatively, you might send out an anonymous survey or form for attendees to fill out.
Don’t shy away from asking for feedback as without it you won’t have the opportunity to grow and facilitate better online meetings. This kind of feedback will also help you to plan the next meeting with their ideas in mind, making it more engaging for everyone involved.
If you are looking for ways to get your team more engaged in virtual meetings, take a look at our virtual team building events. Here at KDM, we have decades of experience in delivering team building events, face to face or otherwise. From virtual Christmas parties to fantastically fun events which will get colleagues talking and connecting, contact us to learn more about virtual team building from KDM.
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