Many high-stakes meetings are conducted virtually now. How do you make these important meetings as successful as they can be? There is a significant amount of meeting design that goes into creating an effective agenda, and then strong facilitation skills are critical in getting the most from your time together. Many of the same tips for in-person meeting management apply to virtual meetings, and these best practices become even more important when everyone isn’t in the same room. The following facilitation tips will ensure you have a successful and inclusive virtual meeting:
Be prepared and share the prep.
Share the agenda, discussion questions, and process beforehand so everyone comes ready to contribute on the video call.
WAIT. Why Am I Talking?
Don’t waste valuable meeting time reporting or sharing updates – the beauty is in the DISCUSSION and COLLABORATION. Reports and updates can be consumed on an individual basis pre or post meeting.
Share the desired OUTCOMES.
Maybe for your first strategic planning meeting, you will not make any decisions. State that upfront. “Our goal is for everyone to share what you think our strengths and areas of opportunity are. We won’t make any hard decisions for 2026 focus areas at today’s meeting.” At your next meeting, you state, “Our goal is to leave this meeting with our 3 focus areas for 2026.”
Know the room.
Who are the decision makers, the opinion leaders, the derailers, and the skeptics? What is your plan for navigating team dynamics?
Create a space where everyone has a voice.
Ensure all attendees have an opportunity to contribute with these quick hacks:
Specifically invite individuals to share their perspective.
Before a break, share a key question that you want to know when everyone returns which gives a bit more thinking time.
Ask a question and give everyone one minute to write down their perspective. Then ask for someone to share.
Invite those who may be dominating the conversation to contribute AFTER the meeting or invite them to use the chat.
When you’re getting stuck or derailed, bring things back with a TRANSITION:
“That’s a great insight and reminds me of our earlier point (agenda item).”
“I had not thought of it that way, and I appreciate your perspective. I think everyone will find you have a lot to contribute on this next point…”
“This is excellent feedback & I think we have what we need. Let’s tackle ___ now.”
Formalize the “after meeting chatter”
When in person, we don’t hit a button and disappear. We debrief and chat as we leave the room, gather our things, and get back to our desk. Leave 5 minutes to debrief at the end of the virtual meeting to try and capture that informal debrief. Everyone could share a Plus/Delta (one thing that worked well, one thing that could be improved).