10 Tips to Manage Online Meetings Better

1. GroupRocket.net

2. Business meetings; the familiar happening in every organization have always proved worthy of the time spent. Setting the stage for discussions on financial planning, operational activities, target achieved, target to be acquired and more, business meetings being proven constructive are now a mandatory in all organizations. Even with their busy schedules and remote or freelance workers, teams do manage to have a group conversation once in a day or a week and obtain discuss all issues and reach at solutions instantly. But with organizations wide spread in different locations and businesses outsourcing their operations to other business in different towns or even continents, having a meeting every once in a while in person is not only cost consuming, tiring and difficult but almost impossible. And in cases where businesses operate from distant places, in person meetings are leading to a constant deficit to every business or organizations’ budget. GroupRocket.net

3. Here are a few tips to help those managers organize an online meeting effortlessly and yes effectively. Is the meeting really necessary? The primary step in organizing an online meeting would most probably be to realize the need of the meeting in the first place. It is no doubt that meetings consume a great part of an employee’s work hours and having a meeting regularly every week or day will only require the employees to increase the amount of effort they put everyday leading to a stressful work atmosphere all year long. And with such an atmosphere, chances that there will always be a delay in getting the work done are pretty high. Rather than having a meeting and deciding on the work schedule to reach the discussed products, focus on the need of the meeting and then decide on the duration of the same. GroupRocket.net

4. Subject of the meeting The answer for figuring out the need of a meeting would and to be honest ‘should’ include the topic to be discussed at the meeting. The subject of the meeting is a deciding factor in recognizing the need of the online meeting. And with the answer at hand, it is quite simple to do. There is no more irritating factor than being at a meeting that has no point in being held or is the sight to have a disinterested member of the team who has no active role in it. Decide on the topic of the meeting and the issues that have to be discussed before actually going ahead with the meeting. And deciding on the topic will not only give the organizer a clear picture of the issues that would arise and possible solutions to it but will also give the employees the opportunity to be well prepared for the same. GroupRocket.net

5. Choose Participants It is highly essential to make all your team mates aware of what happens at their team. But it would mean unnecessary to indulge a team member at a meeting in which he/she has role in. such a meeting would only prove to be uninteresting to the colleague and would siphon off a considerable time from their work hours. Once you decide on the subject of the meeting, make sure you invite only the necessary members of your team for the discussion whereas the other members can be just updated on the discussion held. GroupRocket.net

6. InviteThe issue to be discussed is at hand and the list of employees to be included in the meeting is ready. Now would be the right time to invite all the required personnel to take part at the meeting. Invite all employees well before and also intimate them on the subject of the meeting so they would have all necessary info in hand on time. GroupRocket.net

7. Online meeting platform Since your meeting will be held online, it is mandatory that you would be requiring a platform – software for the same. Having a conversation on phone might be effective for two people whereas will not prove fruitful for a meeting with several participants. In such a case, a common platform that would support file sharing and would also provide video calling features becomes mandatory. With several of these softwares in the market it will not be tough to choose one from the lot. GroupRocket.net

8. Start when said Though being an online meeting, the employees have been intimated before and have put their work aside and made time in their schedule to discuss issues at hand. Making sure to start the meeting right on the time mentioned before would not only be a great strategy to involve interest but will also be a factor that would push employees to be on time at the future meetings as well. GroupRocket.net

9. Make it interactive The purpose of the meeting is to keep your employees engaged and holding a meeting where employees would just inform others on what they do is simply a team update and a meeting where the organizer does all the job and assigns tasks and suggest feedback would merely be a speech not a meeting. Suggest possible solutions to the meeting and also engage colleagues to suggest solutions as well as share their feedback on the solutions that the others have suggested. GroupRocket.net

10. Hooked on topic This is one drawback that every online meeting is prone to most of the time – running off topic. With several participants it is quite common that a meeting would lead to several scenarios not in schedule. And as the organizer always keep an ear and eye on the occurring conversation and bring it back on topic when it derails. Summarize and concludeWith all topics discussed, it is not uncommon that the meeting would run for a much more time than scheduled and with having precise discussions on topics, you can sure be done with the meeting on time. And once done summarize on all that happened and the solutions reached at. GroupRocket.net

11. Keep a record This is for those colleagues who were not included in the team conversation. And as discussed they have to be updated about what happens in the team and with a record of all the team activities it is now easy to keep them updated. With several advantages and drawbacks, an online meeting might become a mere office chat. But with the proper and effective strategy it would do good to your company in a lot ways. For More – http://grouprocket.net/blog/tips-to-manage-online-meetings-better.html GroupRocket.net