Dear Collaboration Colleagues,

Thanks to all of you who contacted us to say"bravo" for our inaugural edition of Facilitate Proceedings. Keep the feedback coming and please, forward the newsletter on to a friend or co-worker.

The theme of this month’s issue is how to take a traditional in-person meeting format and turn it into a virtual meeting that not only works, but sizzles with productivity and focus. We’ve all conducted teleconferences and some of us are getting acquainted with web conferencing dashboards, but now we’re being asked to take some of the most traditional face-to-face meetings (like Board meetings, strategic planning sessions or focus groups) and turn them into virtual events. Can it be done? See the Advisor's Corner to learn about the critical success factors in virtual meetings. Do you have the skills to be an effective virtual facilitator? Take our self-assessment and find out.

Finally, put March 8-10 in Portland on your calendars to attend the International Association of Facilitators Advanced Institute. Our own Julia Young will be leading a full day workshop on how to get great results from virtual meetings.

Happy Holidays from our team to yours,

The folks at Facilitate.com

The Situation Room

You've just been told that your full day in-person meeting must now take 2 hours online.

You had planned a full-way working session for 12 participants to create a detailed action plan. Due to travel and time constraints, you now must accomplish the same results with the same people in a 2 hour remote meeting. You have two weeks to make this happen. Where do you begin?

  • Don’t panic! The key to devising a workable plan is to 1) simplify the agenda and 2) engage your participants early.
  • Do consider the scope of the meeting. What are the objectives that must be accomplished in one sitting? Think about what really needs to be addressed during this meeting and what could be done outside of the meeting. Reach out to the 12 participants and ask them to prioritize the items on your full-day agenda, telling you what they think is essential, what would be nice to cover and what items wouldn’t be missed. If you have online meeting tools, a quick survey or asynchronous topic would be an efficient way to do this.
  • Do consider who really needs to be in the meeting. In general, the fewer the participants, the more productive the conversation. Is it possible to gather input from some people ahead of time and limit the actual meeting to those who need to make decisions?
  • Do find ways to accomplish the remaining objectives in other ways, such as by email, one-on-one phone calls or giving small groups assignments to do offline.
  • Don't leave the group feeling at a loss because a face-to-face meeting was cancelled. Make an individual phone call to each of the participants to explain the change in venue, review the objectives and underscore the importance of their input.
  • Do communicate to your group the importance of being well prepared for the virtual meeting. Completing the pre-work will help sharpen the focus and level the playing field, enabling participants to launch right into the meat of the meeting.
  • Don't ignore the social component that creates team bonding in a face-to-face session. Kick off the meeting with an ice-breaker and plan a fun quiz or game for a mid-session break.
  • Do use collaborative technology to help you run an efficient, productive virtual meeting. Consider video conferencing when the group is brand new. Consider web conferencing if there is a significant presentation component. Use web meeting tools when you need to solicit multiple opinions and prioritize alternatives.

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Advisor's Corner

The Six Secrets to Successful Virtual Meetings

Most of the facilitators we work with agree that running a focused and productive virtual meeting, whether using teleconferencing or web conferencing or even email, has its unique challenges. We’ve taken many informal polls, and here are the top issues that surface repeatedly:

  1. Constructing an agenda that keeps participants away from their emails
  2. Keeping track of participants and their level of interaction
  3. Establishing rapport and build trust in teams that meet virtually
  4. Knowing how to deal with disruption
  5. Building a back-up plan should technology fail
  6. Ensuring participants are prepared to make the best use of the meeting time

As facilitators we already know that we have to pay attention to planning and designing our meeting, deciding who should attend and managing the group dynamics. Everything that we already know about good facilitation applies to virtual meetings and using web meeting tools. But what else must we consider in order to get great results from virtual meetings?

The answer lies in paying attention to six critical success factors (CSFs).

  • Planning a viable agenda or series of agendas
  • Using virtual meeting technology effectively
  • Preparing participants well for the meeting
  • Keeping people focused and engaged during the virtual meeting
  • Building trust and social capital
  • Maintaining momentum betweeen meetings

In this issue we’ll talk about the first two critical success factors and some techniques to ensure that these are well addressed. We’ll address the remaining four in upcoming issues.

CSF #1: Planning a viable agenda or series of agendas
In virtual meetings you are dealing with some unique issues that require you to think carefully about how you construct your agenda. Here are two important considerations:

  • Lay out a series of short agendas that meet overall project objectives.
    90 minutes is about the longest you can expect a virtual group to maintain attention and focus. When transitioning from face-to-face to virtual meetings, consider how best to break overall objectives into shorter components, building a series of agendas to get to your end result. Each agenda may involve different people. Some agendas can run concurrently. Some agendas will require a real-time meeting; others may be run asynchronously.
  • Use asynchronous activities to manage multiple time zones. The nature of virtual teams is often that they cover many time zones. This can make scheduling a real-time meeting a challenge. Some preparation work such as reading documents, idea generation and surveys can often be conducted asynchronously. An asynchronous brainstorm over a period of several days allows people to ponder a problem statement or issue, returning with new ideas and building on each other’s comments for a richer dialogue.

CSF #2: Using virtual meeting technology effectively
There are many different technologies that can help you run successful virtual meetings; the key is to know which one to use when. Here’s a quick overview.

  • Teleconferencing in the most familiar technology for remote meetings. Use it in small groups when meetings are short.
  • Web conferencing is most valuable for shared presentations and desktop demonstrations. Use web conferencing to “push out” real-time information to small or large groups.
  • Web meeting tools are used for both asynchronous and real-time meetings. Focused idea exchange and decision making are the main activities using tools for brainstorming, prioritizing, voting and action planning.
  • Video conferencing is helpful when social interaction is important to developing trust in the group.
  • Instant messaging is best left to behind the scenes communication between the facilitator and the meeting sponsor. It can be distracting to the participants.

Remember that technology should assist in meeting effectiveness, not drive the meeting process; select the tools that match your objectives.

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Are You Ready to Facilitate Virtually?

Assess your virtual meeting facilitation skills by answering a short online questionnaire

Click here to answer the questionnaire and then analyze your score.

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Buzz About Meeting Effectiveness

And here's what popped up on the web:

09.21.2006 Anecdote Blog

Why people don't use collaboration tools
Thanks to Mark Wilkinson for passing on this blog entry. Following a familiar cycle, the marketplace has reached the point where collaboration technology (from video conferencing to social networking to web meeting software) abounds, and the human adoption curve lags behind. To the frustration of their managers and I/T, people can be remarkably resistant to adopting new technology. The author has an interesting suggestion: wait to introduce a collaboration tool to a work group until it recognizes that something is needed to get beyond a roadblock and move forward. That’s the moment the group will be most receptive to new approaches and technology. In the author’s words, “put practice and process before tools”. That is always sound advice, however you choose to incorporate technology.
http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2006/09/why_people_don't.html


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Facilitate.com: Of Interest

Here's what's been happening at Facilitate.com

IAF Advanced Institute One Day Pre-Conference

Julia Young presents Getting Great Results from Virtual Meetings
Learn the soup to nuts of designing and running virtual meetings at the International Association of Facilitators North America Conference in Portland Oregon March 8-10, 2007.

“We already know how to design and facilitate highly effective face-to-face meetings. This session will explore how to leverage these skills by taking them virtual. In fact, the first part of the session will take place virtually – before the conference – in order to experience both asynchronous and real-time virtual meetings first hand. We will use a case study to illustrate how to convert a face-to-face event into a series of virtual meetings and asynchronous activities. During the conference session, we will use games and our collective skills and imagination to build practical techniques for solving even the most difficult meeting situations. And we will explore some virtual meeting technology hands-on and discuss which tools to use when."
http://www.iaf-world.org/conference/portland.htm

Contact us to bring Getting Great Results from Virtual Meetings to your organization.

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