Online board meetings can be a beneficial tool for making effective decisions. However, if they’re not properly managed, they could cause boredom and low participation. To get your virtual meetings to be more engaging be sure to follow these simple guidelines to improve the quality of your meetings and increase efficiency.

Distribute the agenda to participants prior to the meeting so that everyone has an understanding of what’s going to be discussed. Also, think about asking your board members to listen from best practices for agenda in board meetings a quiet space without distractions. Additionally, ask attendees to utilize your virtual meeting software’s “raise hand” function whenever they need to speak, in order to prevent over-talking and missing the point.

Keep the discussion focused on the most important issues by setting a agreed-upon maximum amount of time to speak for each item. This lets everyone participate and stops the discussion from going off topic or causing distractions for others. It is a good idea to ask your board members to mute their microphones when they’re not speaking to block background noises like pets, kids and coworkers.

Last but not least, conclude the meeting quickly. This is a way to show respect for the time of your fellow board members. It is also a good practice to send the minutes shortly after the meeting has ended. It can also be helpful to simplify the process of recording and disseminating minutes using the built-in features of the software you use to manage your board, such as inline task delegate.

This will ensure that everyone is on the same page in regards to what transpired during the meeting and what needs to be done between meetings.