Dr. Martin M. Lwanga
As offices shut down due to the urgency to stem the corona virus some are wondering how staff are going to continue meeting to carry out business anymore. Not just crowds but groups are now being discouraged. In Germany groups are now restricted to two persons.
In person meetings with staff teams, customers and suppliers are therefore definitely going to be discouraged, for healthy reasons, at least for now to limit human contact. This will affect many business operations, as people stay at home.
Even before corona virus hit the work place was already shifting from the office to homes. Already in the US presently I out of 5 people are working from home. This shift by the way is here to stay even after the end of this pandemic.
Now just because people are working from homes it doesn’t mean business must stop. One way of addressing the above challenge is through holding virtual meetings. Meeting are the lifeblood of all organizations through which ideas are presented, work plans are followed up and mutual decisions made. As long as organizations exist meetings have to happen.
The good news is that today at our disposal are a number of tools that can enable us to have meetings virtually. These range from recent technologies like Skype to Go Meetings apps, purposefully designed to meet this need.
Recently I was involved in a project with some of the key partners based in the US. I have been using Skype for a while but this time I was invited to join the meeting through Zoom app. I found it very interesting and the meeting went well with about five of us all in different locations. The audio and face time were all crisp and clear.
One of the most important key here is investing and having a strong internet connection. If your internet connection is weak expect a lot of interruptions through break ups which may make the meeting not go well. Organizations are now advised to invest greatly in their internet support system.
The rules of having a virtual meeting are much like those in person. It is important to have a Chair, have an agenda, set ground rules and time. Even in a virtual meeting parties can easily get distracted and the meeting loses its focus.
Because some of the limitations of virtual meetings is of course that you can’t see everyone at ago (based on which tool) the Chair must be deliberate in remembering who is on call and seek out their contributions. Virtual meetings face the challenge that someone could be into other stuff while the meeting is going on, and hence the Chair needs to be deliberate that everyone is focused on the issues.
The bottom line here is that no one should say we can’t meet anymore because we can’t come to office. The technology is there and take advantage of it!
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