With any video conference you participate in, it is important for there to be constant momentum. You want conversations to progress forward, as this helps certain projects – and those responsible for them – move in the right direction.
While most video call regulars would agree that an online meeting platform is a truly efficient environment to work within, hiccups occur. These, in some instances, can derail the team meeting, and subsequently pause projects, or set them back entirely.
To keep that from happening, you need to not let these five things stop you from making headway during a virtual meeting:
Technical Difficulties
As amazing as video conferencing solutions for business are, there will be instances in which a technical issue pops up and causes a disruption. Naturally, the size and scope of such a problem can vary.
If the issue is minor, power through the best you can as long as all video conference attendees are comfortable working alongside the glitch. For the more major tech fails, quickly reach out to everyone and work toward rescheduling the conversation asap.
No matter what you do, however, do not let a technical issue completely put the kibosh on the meeting you planned on having.
Late Attendees
Whether an attendee is late because their earlier video conference ran long, or they forgot entirely about the one you scheduled, their eventual arrival can throw your team meeting into a tizzy.
To avoid this result, simply acknowledge the person’s arrival to the meeting without spending minutes going through what made them late. This point is largely irrelevant to other meeting participants and only drags out the call. A post-video call email exchange between concerned parties is the better forum for such a fact-finding mission.
Last Minute Agenda Adjustments
Of course, it is always ideal to provide video conference attendees with an agenda as far ahead of a meeting as possible. This helps people get prepared, and understand the focus of the gathering.
However, there will be circumstances that force you to change an agenda on the fly. When this happens, don’t panic or let it toss your video meeting plans upside down. If a presenter has a family emergency and can’t join the call, either give other presenters more time to talk, or end the call early.
Both are far less stressful alternatives to thrusting a presentation request upon an unsuspecting staffer with little time for them to put something together.
Disagreements
Not every video conference is going to be a peaceful, kumbaya type of experience. When professionals are passionate about what they do, there is the possibility of heated disagreements erupting within a meeting.
If you are the lead of this live video chat online, leave a bit of room for the disagreement to reach an amenable conclusion. For the times in which this doesn’t happen, do not hesitate to step in and extinguish the situation. A long, drawn out confrontation can distract from accomplishing the objectives at hand.
Prolonged Casual Conversations
It is never a bad thing to have your team all together on a video chat app talking about weekend plans, current events, or other relatable happenings. You want everyone to get along and feel socially comfortable with one another.
That said, time is still of the essence when it comes to video conferences. As such, there will be moments in which these conversations need to be interrupted so that attendees can dedicate their energy to the video chat.
As fun as these interactions can be for those on the video call, you do not want them to take away from what needs to be discussed and put into action.
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