Speaker 1: Do you want to be a virtual meeting hero? Well, virtual meetings are now part of our life whether you like it or not. By the end of this video I'm going to share with you best practices on how you can master virtual meetings. So if you're running virtual meetings, that means you have virtual teams and with all teams usually comes projects. Stay tuned to the end of this video because I'm going to give you something that is really cool that's going to help you rock your projects. Hi, if you're new here, welcome. For the best career and project management advice, subscribe to my channel, hit that bell button, and a brand new video is going to come to you every Wednesday. After facilitating hundreds and hundreds of virtual meetings, I have come across what works well and what doesn't and I'm going to share with you some of my favorite techniques that are tried to true and a must for you to do if you're running your next virtual meeting. So if you're excited about this, give this video a like and let's get to it. Test technology ahead of time. Okay, this seems like a no-brainer, but you will be surprised with how many virtual meetings that I have attended that technology does not work. So I'm letting you know with more and more virtual meetings happening in our business world, it is critical that you take at least 15-20 minutes prior to the meeting to make sure everything is working. It sucks when you are waiting and waiting and waiting and waste precious time because tech is not working. Meeting timing. Okay, now that you're doing more virtual meetings, you got to be really careful with how long your meetings are running for. You don't have the luxury of people giving a five-minute break and going to the washroom and getting up or even doing exercises that you're all in a room together live, which breaks up monotony. Virtual meetings can sometimes be very monotonous. So try to stick to an hour max max about two hours and if you have to, break things up and have multiple virtual meetings. Turn on video. So if you're using any type of program like Microsoft Teams, Skype, BlueJeans, Zoom, GoToMeetings, whatever platform you're using, there's always an option for video. Turn it on. Have you ever been in a meeting where everyone is just on the call? You know how hard it is to actually understand what people are doing because body language is so powerful. It's kind of like you're having a meeting in a dark room. That's not helpful, nor is it effective and efficient. So if you have video capability, don't make it a guideline. Make it a rule. Make it mandatory. Turn the video on. You would be surprised. Studies shows you get more information by actually seeing people in front of you. Objectives and agenda. All right, just because you are having a virtual meeting does not mean that the golden rules of meeting etiquette go out the window. Yeah, you still need objective and yes, you still need an agenda. So ensure that you do those things. I have a great video over here that you can check out that can give you more information if you really aren't really good about agendas and objectives, because this is just important no matter what type of meeting you have. Assign rules. Even more so for virtual meetings, you really need to assign rules because at least in a live meeting, you can probably do a couple of things and get a lot of information going on in the room. While in a virtual meeting, if you're facilitating it and then you have technology and a whole bunch of other stuff you have to deal with, it becomes very hard to sort of keep on track. So what I would like for you to do is assign rules. Make sure someone's a timekeeper to keep you on track and following that agenda. Make sure someone's a note taker. Even assign someone from a technology standpoint. If we have any technical issues, can you make sure that we have IT on speed dial so they can help us out? Ensure that all those rules are assigned and it's just going to help you as the meeting owner, the one who actually sent the invite to now is a facilitator to actually run the meeting properly. Again, your attention span from everybody is limited. So you really want to make sure that everyone has a very clear rule so that you can have a smooth meeting. Use icebreakers. Okay, with virtual meetings, you already have a disadvantage of being really far apart from everyone and you're only connected through video, right? With everyone. Now, with regular meetings, live meetings, you have the ability to chit chat, discuss things with people before the meeting starts. You don't have that same opportunity. So I really do highly recommend you just interject slight icebreakers just to get everyone kind of connected and together. It really does make a difference and it keeps the distance that you already have, which is already a big distance to begin with, a lot smaller and more connectivity as a team. Now, I actually have some videos on icebreakers, so check them out so that you can integrate them in your next virtual meeting. Okay, so now that you know how to rock your next virtual meeting, you need to understand with your virtual teams and all your projects how to rock those too. So check this out with the link below. Grab it. It talks about how projects failed and what to do so you can stop that from happening. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel, like this video and share it with all the colleagues you know. I would love to hear if you're new to virtual meetings, if you're a pro to virtual meetings and any tips and tricks you may have. Please put them in the comments below. Until next time, see you later.