Video meetings don’t HAVE to be awful…
Zoom Fatigue
The emergence of COVID-19 has changed many aspects of our lives, both working and otherwise. It’s forced us away from our city centre office blocks and into our homes, from our climate-controlled, well-lit meeting rooms and into the dining room, the spare room, the garage — or even the garden (if you’re lucky enough).
It’s seen applications like Google Hangouts, Zoom and Microsoft Teams become part and parcel of our everyday lives — and they’ve already moved from being an exciting new thing to being despised, with phrases like “zoom fatigue” being coined.
Does different mean worse?
Online meetings are different. There’s no way to skirt around that issue. Even for those of us that already worked from home a few days a week, or worked in teams where we’re not always in the same location — there were still certain meetings that we’d organise time to physically get everyone together, just because it was easier than trying to do it online.
But — what if I told you that different didn’t have to mean worse? What if I said that you can make video call meetings engaging, enjoyable and productive?
That may sound like some hair-brained money making scheme, or like I’ve found a lamp and I’m about to use one of my wishes. But that’s not the case, it’s all about preparation and facilitation. By doing both well, remote meetings can be energising rather than exhausting.
Formal Training
Earlier this year, myself and a group of colleagues here at Citizens Advice went on a remote facilitation training course, hosted by Judy Rees from Adventures with Agile.
We came away buoyed and filled with ideas and I feel confident in speaking for the entire group when I say we’d all recommend them for more formal training. Watching such a skilled remote facilitator at work was as, if not more beneficial than the content of the course itself, which given the quality of the course, is saying something.
After the training, as a group we discussed what we thought the biggest takeaways were, what we could implement really quickly and effectively in meetings we were running and more crucially, what we could do to get our colleagues on board. We then came up with a prioritised list (I mean, obviously — put a group of delivery managers together and if nothing else, you will get a prioritised list — even if you didn’t want, need or ask for one.)
Since then I’ve been working with the wonderful Catherine Annison to produce some materials to share internally which cover off the basics of having better meetings. (Psssst this blog is one of those materials, once we get past my contextual ramblings…).
So Martyn, how can you make an online meeting good?
Step one: Reduce the amount of them…
“Zoom fatigue” is a term we’re all seeing more of lately, and when do we tend to get fatigued? When we do too much. Reducing the amount of meetings we’re all having reduces the fatigue levels, so that we can focus on the really important ones. There are alternatives you can consider.
- Video updates — looking to inform rather than have a group discussion? Share a recorded update for people to watch in their own time
- Surveys — if your main purpose is to gather opinions or views, would a simple survey do the job as well, if not better, than gathering everyone together?
- Messenger conversations (Slack etc.) — is the meeting for a simple enough discussion point that a quick back and forth on Slack could generate the way forward?
You can also use the mediums above alongside a follow-up meeting to reduce the length of time spent in a video meeting — and it can also be a good way to give people time to formulate their thoughts.
For example, sending out a 15 minute video update on Monday with a follow-up meeting on Friday for people to feed back on a proposition gives people the chance to watch in their own time, have up to 4 days for the information to percolate and reduce the length of the Friday meeting by at least 15 minutes (probably longer, as people will have digested everything better and will likely have less follow up questions etc.)
Step two: Be clear about what you’re trying to achieve
This one is two-pronged — firstly, be clear what you’re aiming to get out of the meeting you’re proposing and secondly, communicate this to your attendees.
A good way to focus on this is by setting a purpose and an outcome for the meeting. You can think of these almost as user needs and acceptance criteria for the meeting and use a similar format:
“The purpose of this meeting is to…”
“At the end of this meeting we will have…”
Make sure these are in the meeting invite, giving people an overview of what the meeting is for, rather than assuming the title alone will do the job.
Step three: Plan how you’ll get there
There are four really important things to consider when you’re planning the agenda for an online meeting.
- People’s focus drops after around 45 minutes, this is exacerbated during online meetings
- Work tends to get done in smaller groups
- Find the simplest way to achieve your objectives
- Be generous with time
NASA research has shown that people’s ability to focus and contribute effectively starts declining after around 45 minutes. Because of this, if you’re planning a meeting longer than 60 minutes, you should allow time for a comfort break every hour. People will often be happy to skip this, but don’t — enforce it, it’s important. It may seem like you’ll be done quicker if you skip it, but in reality taking a step away will let the group refocus and make better progress.
Having too many voices trying to contribute at the same time can cause a few different issues. Those who are louder are likely to dominate conversation and those who are quieter are less likely to contribute. Because of this, if you’ve got more than about 6 people, it’s best to break things down into smaller group activities/discussion and then have each play back to the wider group.
Also think about resources available to you and how you use them. You might love a tool like Miro, or Jamboards might be the hot new tool that everyone in the office is talking about.
But that doesn’t mean using them will be the simplest way to get people to communicate and converge on a problem, idea or solution. Whilst these tools may allow us to try and mimic the formats we’d use in person, having to have an extra tab open or learning the intricacies of a new piece of software could be an additional thing for people to focus on or worry about, rather than the core objective of the meeting.
There will be times when these tools are completely the best way to do things — but the advice is, start with your purpose and objectives, think of the easiest way to achieve them and then consider tools — don’t start with your tools!
The last point is about not trying to cram too much in. We’ve all been in meetings that have a carefully crafted agenda, where we’re going to focus on point one from 11:07–11:22, with the next item covering 11:23–11:36. Spoiler alert, people — as a general rule, are bad at estimating. The meeting I’ve just described is likely to result in one of two things:
1. It’ll over run and you’ll lose people’s engagement because they have something else to be doing
2. Not get through the things that it needs to before timing out
Because of this, you should be generous with timings and front-load the meeting with the key activities/discussions needed to achieve your outcomes. You can even have additional ‘optional items’ that you can cover if you have time — but don’t set the expectation they have to be covered.
Step four: Prime people to contribute
Forgive me for getting too psychological here, but it’s been noted that if people contribute early on in a meeting, they’re more likely to contribute throughout. When facilitating, there are a couple of ways we can get everybody participating early on.
Ice breakers
The first is to have an ‘ice breaker’ at the start of a meeting. this one can also help if you know going in that there will be difficult points to be discussed, with opposing views. Keep it light, quick and fun. I often like to start with a random question like “What was the first piece of music you bought?” or “What was the job you wanted when you were 7?”. Not only does this get everyone involved, but it’s humanising and often uplifting to have a few minutes not concentrating on work.
Ice breakers are more difficult to do with smaller groups, in shorter meetings. But try and do it wherever you can.
Pre-work
The second is to set attendees a small task to complete before the meeting, again this shouldn’t be to taxing or take up too much time. It could be reading a blog or other material relevant to the meeting or bringing something along for the ice breaker. In the past I’ve got people to draw ticks and crosses or smiley and sad faces on paper before a meeting, to be used to vote on options.
Ask if people have done this and share back the outcomes early in the meeting.
There are also a couple of practical things to help encourage engagement.
Allow a few minutes at the start of your agenda for people to join, settle and check any technical issues. Can everyone see and be seen, hear and be heard? Can everyone access any supplementary tools/software? Get it all sorted before the meeting starts properly.
It’s also good to encourage everyone to have their cameras on and leave them on. People engage better when they can see each other and whilst we can’t replicate the eye contact that’s lost from the physical space, we can respond to one another’s body language.
That about sums up my musings on making online meetings better, I hope this has been helpful to those of you who’ve taken the time to read it. Below are some links to the other resources we’ve created. The first is short video scripted and animated by Cat and the other is a quick poster summarising the key points from this blog.
Good luck, Zoomers!
