In-person or remote worker, efficient communication is vital to your success. Virtual meetings can be especially difficult to conduct, however following the guidelines in this article can help you organize more effective meetings.

Engage the attendees from the start. Begin meetings with a short introduction, such as letting attendees share highlights of their week or a fun story they came across. This helps create a positive environment and gives the attendees a sense of focus prior to focusing on the agenda.

Create a note-taking system at the start of the meeting. It’s easy for attendees to lose important information during a meeting that is remote. Having a person record the discussion will help prevent any miscommunication. It’s also a good idea to encourage everyone to keep notes, so they can review the information later and apply it to their work.

It isn’t easy to avoid speaking simultaneously or interrupting a person in a virtual setting. To prevent this, promote turn-taking and encourage the use of the “raise hand” function within your virtual meeting software.

Close your meeting by giving an action plan that is clear how to run effective virtual meetings and concise items. This helps ensure that your team is following through on the goals and decisions you make in your meetings. It’s also an excellent idea for meeting organizers to send a detailed summary of the outcomes of the meeting and actions items, ideally within several hours of the meeting’s end. This can be done via sharing a document or sending an email via your meeting software.