Karen Finn, Vice President of Professional Services at Clear Impact, provides tips for conducting effective virtual meetings. She discusses the importance of preparation, having clear objectives, an agenda, and guidelines. Some keys to effective virtual meetings are asking participants to sign in early and provide backup contact information in case of disconnections. Videoconferencing allows sharing screens to take notes. Common issues like people talking over each other can be avoided using features like mute, hand raising, and breakout rooms.

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How to Conduct Effective Virtual
Meetings
Karen Finn

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About
As VP of Professional Services with Clear Impact, Karen Finn
works throughout the United States and Internationally to assist
government agencies, non-profit organizations, and leaders of all
types to identify—and continuously improve—community
outcomes and agency performance measures using the Results-
Based Accountability Framework. Prior to joining Clear Impact,
Karen has held leadership positions in both the government and
non-profit sectors.
Education
Karen has a Masters of Education in Counseling and Human
Services and has completed post-graduate work in leadership
development, multi-cultural diversity, mutual gains negotiation
and Results-Based Accountability. She is also a qualified trainer
and administrator of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator © and the
FIRO-B.
Karen Finn
Vice President of Professional Services

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Agenda:
Overview
• Effective Meetings
• Preparation before the meeting
• Types of Videoconference
Services
• Potential “Fails”
• The “power of the pause”

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Effective Meetings
• In-Person
• Preparation
• Clear Objectives
• An agenda
• Guidelines
• Process for decision-making
• Virtual
• Preparation
• Clear objectives
• An agenda
• Guidelines
• Process for decision-making

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• Preparation:
• Re-Assess whether a meeting is actually needed
• Send out guidelines ahead of time
• Provide a practice session
• Ask people to sign in early for the meeting to test the
audio and video
• Ask people to sign in with their full names and emails
• If participants sign in with only their email they can
change their name in the meeting
• Provide a back-up if people lose their connection (a
person’s email or text)
• Identify a facilitator for the meeting
Effective Virtual Meetings:
Preparation

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Effective Virtual Meeting Agendas
• Clear objectives
• What you hope to accomplish with
the meeting
• To meet or not to meet: that is the
question
• Videoconference vs. teleconference
• A timed agenda
• Linked to the objectives
• Provide enough time for the most
important objectives
• Provide plenty of breaks for
meetings longer than an hour

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Effective Meetings: Guidelines
• Guidelines
• Let people know how to ask
questions or provide input: hand
raise; chat, Q&A
• Ask people to stay on mute
unless talking
• Send out before the meeting and
also have a slide with them at the
beginning of the meeting

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• Participants on mute to minimize background noise
• We want your participation:
• Raise your hand or
• send a chat to ask a question or make a comment
• Using break-out rooms for smaller group conversation
• We will be recording this meeting
• Please be patient
Sample Guidelines

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Effective Meetings: Icebreakers
• Introductions: Please say your
name, your organization and
the answer to one of these
questions:
• What is your favorite board game of
all time?
• What is your favorite way to spend
20 minutes of free time

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Share Your Screen
• Share your screen and take
notes
• Benefits of a videoconference is
that you can “share your screen”
• This keeps people focused on
the discussion
• Taking notes on a Word doc or a
slide of people’s contributions
also keeps them focused

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Decision-Making Tools
• Process and tools for decision-
making
• Google Sheets
• Google Docs
• Survey Monkey

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Common “Fails”
• People talking over each other
• Have everyone on mute;
• Facilitator can unmute each person as
they are called upon
• Use the “hand raising” feature
• Call on people in order of names in the
participant box
• Ask people to comment in the chat box
• Use “Break Out” rooms
• Be careful of your facial expressions

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Common “Fails”
• Person’s face is in shadow
• Be careful of lighting behind you
• Close window shades
• Light should be in front of them
• Adjust camera angle
• Video “freezes” and voice breaks up
• Poor internet connection
• Stop sharing video
• Echoes
• Usually results when someone is using two different audio systems
• Have people use headphones or select phone-in function

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Videoconference Providers
• Paid
• Zoom Meetings and Webinars
• Go to Meetings and Webinars
• Web-Ex
• Adobe Connect
• Google Hang-Outs Meet
• Bluejeans
• Free
• Zoom Meeting
• 100 Participants
• 40 minute meeting limit
• Skype Free Tier
• 50 Participants
• Cisco Web-Ex Meetings
• 100 Participants
• Google Hang-Outs
• 10 Participants
• Lifesize Go
• 8 Participants

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The “Power of the Pause”
• When Taking On-Screen Notes, click the
“pause screen” button so that people aren’t
watching you while you type
• Make sure to click the resume button when
you want people to see what you wrote
• Pause to allow people to review slides, notes
on the screen; answer questions; think; etc.

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• Videoconference in real life
• Conference Call in Real Life
• Conference Call Fails
Check Out YouTube for
Funny Videos

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Keeping Connected Ideas:
• Virtual Lunch Hours
• Virtual Happy Hours
• Staff Meetings
• Parties?

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Clear Impact Virtual Workshops
100% Online - Interactive - Delivered Live
• Results-Based Accountability 101
• Results-Based Accountability Implementation
• Asset Based Community Development
• Collective Impact (RBA and ABCD Focus)
• Achieving Results For and With Youth
• Introduction to Clear Impact Scorecard
• Clear Impact Scorecard Administrator Training
• Using Scorecard Data to Make Key Decisions
• Custom Designed Workshops

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Clear Impact Virtual Workshops
Visit
Clearimpact.com/virtual
for more information

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RBA Professional Certification
Master the principles of Results-Based
Accountability, boost your leadership potential,
and help improve your community with an RBA
Professional Certification
100% Online
Learn at your own pace
Buy 2 get 1 free when enrolled by May 7th, 2020!
Visit clearimpact.com/certification for more info

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Questions?