How to Have Meaningful Meetings via Zoom

Many meetings, whether online or face to face, are known for being long and wasteful. Keeping employees and coworkers well informed of the company’s activities is important, but it’s never good to bore them or overload them with too much information. it’s very easy to get off-topic and have a meeting that drags on forever. There are several ways to have meaningful, and not wasteful, Zoom meetings.

Encourage Individual Participation

A meeting is more meaningful when it’s interactive and everyone is allowed to participate. The host should make sure that everyone is paying attention and following along with the discussion. The attendees should overcome their fear of public speaking and learn to become more engaged with other people.

Encourage Small-Group Participation

It’s recommended that meeting participants form groups of three or four in break rooms. They can participate in activities with small groups, which is easier than trying to participate in a group of 20 or more people. Each break room can be set at a time limit of 10 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour. At the end of this meeting, the group is broken up, and the participants are allowed to return to the main meeting.

Include Visual Presentations

Zoom allows meeting hosts and speakers to share their computer screens. They are encouraged to create visual presentations in Word and PowerPoint that everyone can view easily from their own computers. This avoids them the trouble of having to open the files on their own computers.

Keep Speeches Brief

It’s common to have multiple speakers in one meeting. But a host who wants to stay on track must stay on topic and set time limits for each meeting. It’s necessary to keep the speeches brief regardless of who’s speaking. Any speaker can get carried away with a thought and continue rambling for 30 minutes or longer. Each person must be concise and transition smoothly from one topic to another.

Having useful meetings on Zoom is possible without wasting everyone’s time and draining everyone’s energy. In the first few weeks of training, you’ll need to have long, detailed meetings. As time goes by, schedule meetings as few times as possible during the week. When you do hold meetings, make sure that they are concise and to the point.

Originally published at https://victoralston.net.