Effective board meetings

Effective remote board meeting #1 The Preparation

3 min read

Wednesday 25 March 2020

Remote meetings are fine. A handy way to do this is a digital meeting via video. When preparing for such an online meeting, there are a number of things you can take into account. After all, a well-prepared meeting is more efficient, takes less time and participants are more positive about the time spent.

Below you can read our tips on how to prepare a effective board meeting.

1. Do not meet (unless necessary)

Don't let your meeting go ahead automatically, but think about the need for it. If no agenda items have been received, cancel a meeting. In this way you only meet when it is necessary and ensure that everyone remains involved and motivated when there is a meeting. This applies to a meeting in real life, but also to a digital remote meeting.

2. Control well-functioning equipment for a remote meeting

If you are meeting remotely, make sure you have the right facilities in place beforehand. If your organisation is new to digital conferencing, ask meeting participants to test these well in advance. You don't want the meeting to start too late, because one of the participants still has to try out how everything works.

3. Define the purpose of the meeting in advance

What do you want to accomplish with each other? In other words: what is the purpose of the meeting? It provides clarity and direction if you share this with the meeting participants beforehand. In this way, you avoid unnecessary consultation on matters that fall outside the set objectives. Meetings with a clear goal take less time, are more effective and the meeting participants are more positive about the time spent.

4. Decide who is present at the meeting

Make sure that all relevant stakeholders are present, so that you can make the necessary decisions during the meeting. Be careful not to invite too many people. Especially with a digital meeting it is important to limit the number of participants.
Thinking critically about who you invite beforehand will result in shorter, more effective meetings.

5. Choose the right time for a meeting

It seems obvious, but plan your meeting when the participants have time in their agenda. Use the link from Indeqa with Outlook or other digital calendar software. This way you can easily and efficiently put the agendas of the participants next to each other and choose a time.

Do not automatically choose the Monday for weekly meetings. Tuesday, for example, can also be a good time: after the start of the week questions arise and decisions have to be made. The meeting time should then fit in nicely with the participants' need to meet each other.

6. Provide a clear agenda and share it on time

A good agenda always contains the logistic information, such as date, time, meeting link and attendees. In addition, you always mention the purpose of the meeting. Make sure that the substantive points that follow are in line with this goal. If this is not the case, you must either adjust the purpose or the items of the meeting. Choose consciously whether you want to keep room for 'Other matters' or 'any other business'. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' in that respect; see if it works and if it supports the purpose of the meeting.

Finally: share the agenda in time, so everyone can prepare properly. This contributes to the effectiveness of your meeting. In Indeqa you can always make last minute changes or add documents at a later time.

7. Use the video and audio capabilities of Teams

If you use Teams, online meetings are possible for everyone. Teams offers high-quality audio and video, with the same security and compliance as in Office 365. Teams also offers interesting functionalities such as screen sharing, recording of meetings and chatting.

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8. Make it easy for external meeting participants

Ensure that external meeting participants can easily and securely gain insight into important meeting documents, tasks and decisions and agendas, without the complicated process of installing meeting software.

With Indeqa you can easily send a link to external parties. Through this link they can easily and securely access these documents in a few steps. This way you avoid frustration and make sure every participant has the right documents.

9. Use the possibilities of the software

By making good use of the software you save time. Point 4 already mentioned the ease of linking to the calendars. You can also save time in other areas. For example, in Indeqa you can automatically convert an elaborated agenda to a Minutes document and then further elaborate your minutes in it. Keeping a structure in your work during the preparation, ensures an effective meeting and time savings afterwards.

More structure in your remote board meeting

Do you also want more structure in your digital board meeting? Choose the ideal combination of Microsoft Teams and Indeqa. Read all about this combination and watch our demo videos. We will be happy to show you our added value!