Many of us have been spending a fair bit of time doing online meetings. This may be due to due to the ongoing pandemic, but online meetings have been going on for years and it seems more than likely that the trend will continue even more in the future. Pandemic issues aside, online meetings are incredibly useful for getting a team together that may be in several locations. Over the years I have been experienced many meetings and have some thoughts on what I think makes a great protocol for someone that might be hosting a meeting. There are likely things I am missing feel free to put your thoughts in the discussion.

Here here we go, imagine you are leading a group and hosting an online meeting for the first time. Here are some steps.

  1. Before the meeting
    1. Figure out your platform, will you be using WebEx, GoToMeeting, Teams, Zoom, or something else?
    2. Determine if there is a participant limitation to a platform, for example, the US Army Corps cannot use Zoom.
    3. Schedule the initial meeting using some tool like Doodle, Google Forms, or WhenIsGood.
    4. Once the date is determined send an email as a meeting. This allows participants to respond that they will be there or not and adds the meeting to their calendar.
    5. Set up the agenda that covers the date, participants, agenda items and so on. You will want to make it sufficient for showing on screen, so using good sized fonts and formatting where needed.
  2. Day before meeting
    1. Within 12 hours of the meeting, email the agenda to participants for their potential input and to serve as a reminder.
  3. Day of meeting
    1. 5 to 10 Minutes before your meeting, get the meeting started and share your screen with the agenda. Check off the participants as they arrive on the agenda.
    2. Notify participants if the meeting is being recorded.
    3. At the meeting start time, if there are missing people make sure they are not on the phone only and then begin your meeting by confirming attendance.
    4. Begin your meeting on time if possible and work through your agenda.
    5. Take detailed notes associated with each agenda item, on screen using the agenda. Be sure to identify any actions items and the participant responsible for that item and the timeline
    6. Be cognizant of time, it is possible that participants may have to hop on another meeting at the end of the one they are on.
  4. After the meeting, within the hour
    1. Take a deep breath, it is over!
    2. Look through the notes and identify any action items and the participant assigned.
    3. Craft an email to send to participants that includes:
      1. the agenda with notes as an attachment,
      2. any action items and who is responsible along with timeline in the body of the email identify.
    4. Send out the email to participants

The agenda set up above can then be updated with the agenda for the next meeting and become a living document where the team interactions will be documented over time!

Happy hosting!