September 26, 2005
(Computerworld)
Ronald Berman had a dilemma: He supervised managers all over the country but found traveling for group meetings to be an expensive inconvenience. "The travel was killing me, and I thought there must be a better way to meet," he says.
So about five years ago, he tried using phone lines and a shared electronic whiteboard to connect 10 people as they hammered out a compensation spreadsheet.
Berman found that a process that used to take hours of discussion in person was whittled down to one hour -- without the time and expense of traveling.
He says the shared application helped everyone focus on the task at hand in a way that doesn't always happen in a conference room. And "everyone sees what's being done, so you build trust up rapidly," he says.
"Like e-mail, it changed the communication path," says Berman, now first vice president of virtual technologies and curriculum development at Countrywide Financial Corp., a financial services company in Calabasas, Calif.
Berman has achieved what many managers only dream of: an effective, efficient virtual meeting.
Experts say that businesspeople -- IT leaders included -- generally don't run productive meetings. They allow participants to get bogged down in unfocused discussions or sidetracked checking e-mails on handheld devices. And those problems grow exponentially when meetings aren't face to face.
But in the increasingly global economy, companies can't tolerate that kind of inefficiency anymore. To get work done, teams often need to connect virtually, and the pressure is on to do it right.
"You have to try much harder in a virtual meeting," says Naomi Karten, principal at Karten Associates, a consulting firm in Randolph, Mass.
Running a virtual meeting takes preparation, special skills to ensure that all participants are engaged and an understanding that technology should facilitate -- not overpower -- the meeting's agenda.
"The technology needs to fade into the background," says Dan Rickard, Calgary, Alberta-based director of customer solutions at Elluminate Inc., a provider of collaboration software.
Prep Work
Preparation for a good virtual meeting begins well before it starts. At VA Software Corp. in Fremont, Calif., workers send out agendas and supporting materials 24 to 48 hours in advance, and Chief Technology Officer Colin Bodell expects meeting participants to read them. "The more preparation work we do, the more efficient the call," he says.
Berman holds practice sessions to ensure success. "If the presenter doing the meeting isn't comfortable, people know it, and typically the meetings don't run very well," he says. So the first time someone is scheduled to run a virtual meeting, Berman helps with a walk-through to head off problems.
Berman remembers working with one senior-level executive who tried using a headset during a walk-through. "Every word was tough for him" because of the unfamiliar technology, Berman says, so he had the exec use his own speakerphone instead. "He was a different person. In his own environment using his own phone, he was great," Berman says.
And while you're helping presenters iron out the wrinkles, veterans suggest that you test your technology as well.
Getting Started
Start the meeting on time, says Karten. Tardiness wastes people's time and tries their patience. Depending on the technology in use, starting late can waste lots of money, too.
Always introduce all participants -- if not by name, at least by office. That way, everyone feels like a part of what's going on, says Guy Welty, manager of global media networks and collaborative services at W.R. Grace & Co., a chemical company in Columbia, Md.
Choose your words carefully. For example, virtual participants, particularly those connected only by audio, won't understand when the meeting leader points to a line item and says, "Let's talk about this."
"You really have to imagine that everyone is blind," says Rosalee Hermens, a former CIO and now principal at IT management consulting firm Hermens & Associates in Newton, Mass.
Keeping participants engaged is a challenge in any meeting, but especially in a virtual conclave. Karten remembers giving a video presentation from an office on the U.S. East Coast linked with Asia and Australia. She witnessed people getting up to get food, and she saw one participant trying to stealthily read a magazine.
Don't be afraid to single out those "digital drifters," says Jim Wagner, program manager for live virtual classroom at Sun Education, part of Sun Microsystems Inc.
"We use humiliation when it's obvious someone isn't paying attention," he chuckles. "It's handled in a light way. We might say, 'Turn your mute button off and get back in the meeting.' It works very well."
The more engaging the meeting, the less likely you'll need to use that kind of tactic. So don't overlook the obvious. For example, repeat questions and comments if there's a chance some participants couldn't hear the speakers.
Many experts recommend appointing a moderator or facilitator to keep the meeting moving and to help meeting leaders keep track of participants waiting to speak. "The moderator can push all the buttons and do all the [technical] stuff in the background, so the person owning the meeting doesn't have to do all that," says Wagner.
Welty assigns bridge operators from IT to monitor activity on large virtual meetings. They can mute individual connections, disconnect and redial -- and even adjust an individual's volume.
Choreographing a virtual meeting takes more time and effort than running a face-to-face get-together, but companies that want to compete on a global scale have no choice but to excel at this.
"It's going to take a mind change," Rickard says, "but when the culture catches up to virtual meetings, the benefit will be that instant access to information."
Pratt is a Computerworld contributing writer in Waltham, Mass. Contact her at marykpratt@verizon.net.