As a facilitator of a virtual meeting, interaction is key to success. To create interaction, communicate in a way that supports it, here are some tips that will help in achieving interaction:
- No monologues – no more than three sentences before forcing an interaction
- Ask questions frequently
- Plan one question per each slide or topic in advance
- Ask lots of short open-ended questions frequently, what else?
- Verify and validate that everyone heard you or another team member who is speaking
- Call on people by names, and get everyone to answer
- Use a virtual touch sheet to keep track of who spoke on what topic and when
- Long explanations should be written down and sent out ahead of time
- Speak slower, use shorter sentences, be concise, and use less slang and cultural references
- Change the mode every 90 seconds, slide, question, chat, thinking
- Make the implicit explicit; describe and state what seems obvious; examples are: we will be closed on Monday for a holiday; a snowstorm may cause power outages this week
- Focus on positive; learn to flip questions and statement to positive. Instead of what’s getting in the way, ask what will move this forward?
- Use positive and collaborative words that connect people and ideas, “and,” “yes.”
Practical Tip: Ask everyone to smile and take a screenshot and post it later.
This was excerpted from the article, Virtual Teams Best Practices.
Star Dargin is a retired project manager, who now spends her time reflecting on what went right and wrong by writing, teaching, and coaching about it.
