In the past few years, virtual meetings have become a norm in the workplace. The average knowledge worker likely attended more virtual meetings per month than they did in two before 2020.

The practice of virtual meetings has been around for a while now. But their current frequency makes improving them a priority for both who organize and attend them.

So let's look at how you can improve virtual meetings as an organizer, and also, at the end of this post, we will also explore some tips for the attendee. Let's jump in.

Design and distribute the agenda ahead of time

This tip applies to offline meetings as much as online ones. Sharing the agenda before the meeting helps in multiple ways, including better preparation and better usage of time during the meeting.

The agenda should have the direction of the meeting and clear objectives that need to be reached at the end. A vague agenda is a recipe for wasting time that could have otherwise been used elsewhere productively.

Set hard stops that are not flexible

While flexibility seems to be the mantra at most corporates, it is not something you should encourage when it comes to punctuality for virtual meetings.

When a meeting is scheduled to start at 10 AM, it has to start at 10 and not 10:05 or 10:07. The wiggle room at the beginning of virtual meetings often leads to wasted time not just for the organizer but for all participants who made it on time.

Ensure basic etiquette is followed

A basic level of etiquette would make meetings better for all involved, and it is your responsibility as the organizer to communicate these expectations to your participants.

Something as simple as not talking over others, muting when you're not speaking, sharing the screen with permission from the group, sitting at a reasonably quiet location, etc., are best practices that need to be ingrained in your company's meeting culture.

Make them short and give back time

Most meetings that people hold do not need the time that they have allotted to them. As humans, it is in our nature to add buffers to be safe, but that is not always healthy.

So you can try this strategy for the next few meetings:

  • Try to reduce the meeting time by half and compare the effectiveness of this meeting with the older ones.

  • If the meeting's objectives are reached ahead of time, give back the remaining time to your participants.

  • Try to find alternatives to meetings in your calendar and assess if they are essential. Schedule only if it is unavoidable.

Break down longer meetings and allot breaks

If a meeting is longer than 45 minutes, then a tiny strategic 5-minute break can do wonders in terms of effectiveness.

But needless to say, you need to be strategic about this. Do not interrupt a good flow for a forced break. Instead, assess the situation and give a break when you see that a sub-topic/discussion is done.

Long meetings can be exhausting, and after a certain point, participants are likely to zone out, and the effectiveness of the meeting will drop like a stone.

Encourage participation from everyone

If someone has been deemed critical enough to be invited to a meeting, it is up to you as the organizer to ensure they get an opportunity to contribute.

Not everyone can be vocal in a meeting, and some would not like to come out of their comfort zone to contribute to the meeting, so there must be measures in place where they too can contribute.

Some of the ways you can ensure participation is through routine check-ins, allowing everyone time to get their thoughts out, making the meeting space safe, etc.

This is where having a moderator will help since he/she can intervene or encourage when needed.

Take notes and review them periodically

It is hard to remember all the critical points mentioned or discussed in a meeting; this is where meeting notes and tasks come in handy.

Meeting notes will help add context to the current meeting and provide the basis for future meetings. The same holds good for tasks, except that tasks will help make meeting points actionable.

And when you use a tool like Routine, you'll be able to take meeting notes and create tasks right in the meeting/event. Routine also makes it easy to view incomplete tasks from past meetings on your right-hand side.

So those were some of the tips for being an effective virtual meeting organiser. What are your thoughts on them? Let us know on Twitter @RoutineHQ.

Also, if you have suggestions for topics we can cover on the Routine blog, do tweet at us. Thanks for reading.