Today, JCI Organizations all around the world are embracing remote working environments. Distributed teams are having to consider how to build good relationships with remote members and how to collaborate effectively, including via online meetings.   With some preparation and a game plan, your team can have online meetings that are just as productive and collaborative as getting everyone in the same room.

1. Conducting Effective Online
Meetings & Training
JCI Vice President Mohammad Hijazi

2. Introduction
• Today, JCI Organizations all around the world are embracing remote
working environments. Distributed teams are having to consider how
to build good relationships with remote members and how to
collaborate effectively, including via online meetings.
• With some preparation and a game plan, your team can have online
meetings that are just as productive and collaborative as getting
everyone in the same room.

3. Introduction
• The goals for online meetings are no different than in-person
meetings: communicate clearly so you can make decisions that move
your organization forward.
• When your meeting is remote, you just need to make a few
adjustments to achieve that goal.
• By preparing properly, participating fully and following up, your
online meetings can be just as successful as sitting in a room together.

4. Preparing for Online Meetings
If you go into an online meeting with a game plan, you’ll see better
results during and after you meet.

5. To be prepared is
half the victory!

6. Choose your platform
• For one-on-one meetings or small group
meetings: Skype, WhatsApp Calls or
Messenger Calls
• For bigger meetings: Google Meet,
ClickMeeting, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Cisco
WebEx, GoToMeeting
• For massive webinars: Google Meet (up to
100,000 viewers), Zoom Webinars with
streaming to Facebook & YouTube
• For training with break-out rooms: Zoom

7. Create an agenda
• One key part of meeting preparation is creating
an agenda, which will help everyone come to
the meeting on the same page and keep
participants focused on priorities.
• A good agenda is less about your ability to lead
an online meeting and more about fostering
understanding for participants, especially
people who aren’t in the same room.
• Without an agenda, they attendees are more
likely to lose place, lose focus and lose
attention.

8. Create an agenda
When putting together an agenda, make sure to:
ask for input from those attending the meeting
note any time a decision needs to be made
if necessary, identify who will lead the discussion for each agenda
item or topic
leave room in the agenda for last-minute additions or questions.
for longer meetings with a lot of attendees, also consider including a
general timetable.

9. Set a convenient time
• To make sure that the majority of the
participants can attend, check their
availability before hand by calling,
texting or emailing them.
• For bigger groups, use Doodle to
suggest multiple alternatives and
choose the ones that suit the
majority.

10. Set a convenient time
• Every Time Zone has a handy slider that
allows you to see what time it is across
time zones
• The World Clock Meeting Planner from
timeanddate.com allows you to input
your team members’ different locations
and then creates a table of suggested
meeting times
• Worldtimebuddy lets you add your and
your team members’ locations and then
creates a table showing what time it is in
each place

11. Send a calendar Invite
• The first step to running an effective online
meeting is sending an invitation that
includes all of the information your
participants need in order to be prepared.
• This may seem basic, but making a great
first impression – an invite can set the
tone for the entire meeting. With a
calendar integration for Outlook, Google
Calendar or Office 365 you can send an
invite directly through your online meeting
platform.

12. Send a calendar Invite
Details to include in each invite are:
Date and time of the meeting
(account for several time zones and
always include GMT)
Full list of attendees so that
participants are aware of who they’ll
be speaking with and the roles each
of those people play
Functional details like the link to
your online meeting platform, as
well as dial-in numbers, conference
codes and any instructions for using
them.
Agenda or general overview of what
you’ll be discussing on the call. Make
sure you inform the presenters
about their roles.
Ask participants to confirm their
attendance either by using the
embedded functionality of the
calendar invite or by return e-mail.
Important attachments such as
documents, spreadsheets,
references or articles attendees
should take a look at before the
meeting.

13. Appoint a meeting moderator
• A meeting without a moderator is almost
certain to go off track.
• By appointing a moderator, you give that
person the authority to control proceedings.
• No one can speak without the moderator's
permission, and the moderator is the one
keeping everyone focused on the topic.
• This is particularly important in online
meetings, since there's a high chance of
miscommunication due to internet
connectivity and audio or video quality issues.

14. Use visual tools for before the meeting
• Mind maps can be a great way to record who’s attending and offer
space for comments or ideas beforehand with branches that can link to
relevant documents, action items or notes so everyone comes
prepared.
• This can be a useful structure for online meetings that are a little more
formal and require an exact record, which you can refer to later on.
• Shared mind maps can also be useful if you want your team or
participants to brainstorm ideas in preparation for an online meeting,
or in real-time during the meeting itself.

15. Use visual tools for before the meeting
Mindmeister Padlet

16. Prepare your presentation
• Create exciting and interactive presentations that
include tools that your attendees can interact with
such as polls, world clouds, whiteboards, quizzes.
• Use tools such as Mentimeter.com and Genial.ly
(to create interactive presentations), Prezi.com (to
animate presentations), Piktochart.com (to create
infographics), Moovly.com and PowToon.com(to
create video animations), Focusky.com (to create
exciting presentations), Canva.com (to create
beautiful designs), Visme.co (to create visual
stories), Beautiful.ai (to have AI help you design
your presentations) and Pitchdeck.io (to create
high value presentations)

17. Prepare your space
You probably have seen the video
about Robert Kelly, the South Korea
expert whose kids crashed his BBC
interview while he was live on air.
Whether it’s a cat walking in front of
your camera or a garbage truck coming
down your street, distractions happen.
You can’t prevent every mishap, but
preparing your space beforehand can go
a long way.

18. Prepare your space
• Before the meeting, find a quiet environment where you can limit
distractions. Turn off your phone or computer notifications.
• Use headphones to minimize background noise and prevent audio
feedback.
• Clear your visible area from clutter or inappropriate objects.
• Use a virtual background if your background is cluttered or distracting.
• Make sure that your are in a well-lit area and you do not blend into the
background

19. Prepare your system
• Ask all the participants to restart their computers
at least 20 minutes before the meeting gets
underway.
• Make sure your camera and microphone are
working; raise your webcam to eye-level.
• If you’re working with new conferencing
software, do a test run before the online meeting
begins.
• Use your laptop, not phone. This allows you to
easily take notes, share your screen and have a
stable image.

20. Secure your meetings
• Require passwords for all meetings. Meeting IDs can be guessed,
allowing unauthorized attendees to join even if they have not received
an invite.
• Don’t use social media to share conference links. Create a registration
form on Google Forms and email the conference link to those who sign
up.
• The chairperson joins first. The chairperson or host of the conference
should control admittance. Use the “waiting room” feature to manage
those requesting to join and challenge unknown attendees before
starting the conference.

21. Secure your meetings
• Lock calls after everyone joins. Once invited
attendees have joined, lock the meeting to keep out
unknown attendees.
• Be wary of unknown attendees. Beware of
attendees using unrecognizable usernames. Ask
them to confirm their identity and expel them from
the meeting if they refuse to do so.
• Limit screen sharing. Restrict screen sharing to
attendees who your are expecting to conduct
presentations during the call.

22. Secure your meetings
• Restrict file sharing in the chat. Unknown attendees shouldn’t be able
to receive and open private documents, or send malware disguised as
an attachment to other attendees of the call.
• Prevent the recording of meetings. Block any attendees except for the
chairperson or host from recording the meeting, or set up alerts to
identify which attendee has started recording.
• Enable webinar mode for large meetings. If you have a few panelists
and hundreds of watchers, only allow the panelists access to the video-
sharing version of the meeting and have the attendees watch in the
webinar version or on the social media broadcasts.

23. Participating Like a Pro
You’re all prepared and it’s meeting time. Here are a few tips to make
sure your online meeting goes smoothly.

24. Be present
• As a meeting begins, it’s
absolutely essential that
everyone involved is actively
listening.
• From the “America in Meetings”
study of over 2,000 American
adults, 38% say they zone out
and daydream when they’re not
speaking.
38%
30%
24%
21%
18%
15%
12%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
What users are doing during an online
meeting
Shop Onine Read the news
Think about vacation Check social media
Surf the web Work on other projects
Zone out or daydream

25. Slow and steady
• Keep the pace of your online meeting a bit slower than in-person
meetings due to a two to three-second delay for most systems to
communicate.
• If you’re leading the meeting, make sure there are sufficient pauses
after asking a question.
• If you are a participant, bring attention to yourself before addressing
the group by signaling with your hand or saying “question” or
“comment” and then waiting a couple seconds before continuing.

26. Make the meeting fun
• Brainstorm ways to keep your remote participants engaged. Listening to
a speaker read from a cue card won't stimulate the energy needed to
reinvigorate your team.
• These are some potential fun ways to liven up an online meeting:
Make
introductions
Introduce
brainteasers
Play a
guessing game
Ask them to
fill in a survey
Aggregate a
word cloud
Make casual
conversation

27. Take great notes or minutes
• Good note-taking is something all meetings can benefit from, and there
are lots of ways to take useful notes.
• If you want to take shared notes during an in-person meeting, you may
well turn to a whiteboard.
• You can get a similar effect with online mind maps, which allow
everyone to see and add to the notes as new ideas come up, in real-
time. It’s a great way to keep everyone engaged, create more clarity
and get input from all team members involved.

28. Take great notes or minutes
When taking notes in team meetings or collaborative environments, you
should focus on:
Facts (Example: Jenna is the creative lead on this project)
Issues (Example: There is too much work to get done by the deadline.)
Decisions (Example: We will break this project up into smaller, more
manageable chunks.)
Action plans (Example: The project manager and creative lead will
determine how to break this project up, then the project manager will
schedule a meeting to discuss how to distribute that work.)
Questions and answers (Take note of questions team members bring up
during the meeting and the answers that are given.)

29. Google Keep Evernote
Microsoft OneNoteSimpleNote

30. Ask participants to contribute
• Asking directly for input really helps team members feel engaged.
• It is vital to make every person feel like they have the ability to
contribute to the meeting.
• Reaching out to everyone in the meeting individually or asking
specifically for their contributions is a good way to get people
involved:
Are you happy with it?
What interests you the most and why?
What is your favorite/least favorite
part?
If you could change anything, what
would it be? Why?`
What’s one thing that could increase
your satisfaction with this project, and
why?

31. Recap before you’re done.
• When the meeting’s about to end, have everyone recap the action
items that they’re responsible for.
• This is a way to make sure everyone understands who’s tackling what
and ensure accountability.
• That extra clarity is especially helpful when you can’t see facial
expressions or body language.

32. Do’s and Don’ts
Do’s
✓Be courteous to other participants
✓Speak clearly
✓Keep body movements minimal
✓Move and gesture slowly and
naturally
✓Maintain eye contact by looking
into the camera
✓Dress appropriately
✓Make the session animated
Don’ts
Make distracting sounds
Shout
Make distracting movements
Interrupt other speakers
Carry on side conversations
Wear "noisy" jewelry or shirts
Cover the microphone when
speaking
Keep your microphone on when
not speaking

33. After the Meeting
You did it! Meeting adjourned…almost. Here are a few things you can
do at the end of an online meeting (and beyond) to maintain clear
communication from everyone involved.

34. Save your debrief for later
• Especially if you just finished a high-stakes meeting,
often our first reaction is to immediately debrief with
colleagues.
• You’d never want remote attendees to overhear
something you didn’t mean to share because they
hadn’t left the video conference yet.
• As a general rule, wait until you’re out of the room
to discuss anything that occurred.

35. Send the minutes and follow-up
• Make sure everyone involved has access to the meeting minutes or
notes.
• This can be another great way to create a shared understanding of
what was decided, who’s responsible for what action items and what to
follow up on in the future.
• Send reminder or notification emails when a deadline approaches
based on the decisions of the meeting.

36. Questions?
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mhijazi89