Facilitation Tips

If solving problems or generating high quality ideas are among your primary meeting goals, which of the many meeting modes available in today’s technological world should you choose to achieve optimal success? Face to face?

Most workers today lead, manage, or collaborate with people they do not see on a regular basis. There are many good business reasons for the everincreasing geographic distribution of organizations: the desire to be close to customers and emerging markets, outsourcing/off-shoring, mergers and acquisitions, business continuity/disaster recovery, the need to access top talent from around the world, and more.

Can webconferences, videoconferences and other virtual meetings really take the place of face-to-face contact? With travel budgets slashed in the wake of recessionary belt-tightening, companies are increasingly turning to technology as a substitute for in-person contact.

Structure an agenda to keep things on track – it’s hard to get away with being ill-prepared. Make sure everyone knows the schedule, start and end times for each agenda item, when they have flexibility and when deadlines are tight.

Choose tools that are easy to use. During the meeting spend as little time explaining the technology as possible. Help people focus on the issues they have come to work on.

Many of the techniques you have used to facilitate face-to-face brainstorming will be useful in your remote session. However, virtual brainstorming offers some different challenges and opportunities that you need to prepare for.

Well run and effective meetings require a lot of planning. A typical meeting model is: 10% Planning; 80% Meeting; 10% Follow-up. A much more effective model is 50% Planning; 20% Meeting; 30% Follow-up.