Dr Penny Pullan is the author of several books, most recently Virtual Leadership: Practical Strategies for Getting the Best Out of Virtual Work and Virtual Teams. Her new book Making Workshops Work: Creative Collaboration for Our Time will be published by Practical Inspiration Publishing in March 2021.

Meetings are important in group work. Here are Penny’s Magic 6™ to set meetings up for success:

1. We are here to…

What is the point of your meeting? Can you define this purpose in 7-10 words?

2. Today we will…

What are your four or five goals for today's meeting?

3. Our time plan

Make sure everyone knows when it starts, when it ends and what happens in the middle.

4. Who is doing what in the meeting?

It is useful to identify and agree roles. If you are chairing the meeting, what do other people need to do? Making sure everyone is an active participant, rather than an audience, as this helps keep people engaged. That means they’re less likely to go and do something else.

5. How will we work together?

Agree how you’ll work together in the meeting. Examples for a virtual meeting include muting in a noisy environment (dogs, children?), and agreeing to check in with individuals regularly in random order (this keeps people listening rather than doing something else until they hear their name called).

6. What’s next?

What happens after the meeting? Who needs to do what and by when?

The power of collaborative learning.

Know yourself

• Know your own personality – are you an introvert or an extrovert?

• What are your biases, your preferences? How will you manage if you prefer speaking on the phone and your team prefer video meetings – what will be the best way of working for your team as a whole?

• What are your strengths, what are your weaknesses? Are there people in your team who can cover for you, and vice versa?

• How can you develop yourself? Maybe even buy a book or attend a webinar or MOOC.

• What’s your mindset? Some work with others in a command and control way. This can be useful in crisis mode, when you need to do something important very quickly, but the danger here is that people disengage really quickly. A much more facilitative leadership style is likely to work better when you are working virtually.

Know others

Think of the other people you are working with

• What are their strengths and weaknesses – their personalities? Are they introverts for example?

• How can you work with them?

• How can they work with each other? Agree the group norms that you will use.

The power of collaborative learning.

Complications of virtual learning

What are the similarities and differences in your group? These may include:

• Cultural differences.

• Language differences.

• Wide time-zones.

• Generational differences.

These can make a difference to attitudes and behaviours, for example how prompt they are to meetings or how formal they are in group communications.

Creating rapport through common ground

In virtual teams, your individual identity is less tangible. Your appearance, ethnicity, generation and gender are less visible. Look for ways to find common ground, through shared interests and identify them. For example, for groups keen on life-long learning, you could compare the courses you are studying, the books you are reading. Or you can connect through your physical spaces. A useful exercise is to each look out of your window and describe what you can see to the rest of the group.

The power of collaborative learning.

Technology for collaboration

Your communication doesn’t all have to be through meetings. That will overwhelm you. Think about other options such as collaboration tools. These include repositories where you can share material and access it or discussion boards. These are tools that will allow you to work independently between meetings. Plan which parts of your work are best done live and which ones are best worked on asynchronously. You definitely won’t perform at your best if you are on video meeting software from 8am to 8pm!

Getting the Best Out of Virtual Work and Virtual Teams is available from available from Kogan Page. Quote code VLF20 for a 20% discount.

Running successful virtual meetings

Meetings are important in group work. Here are Penny’s Magic 6™ to set meetings up for success:

1. We are here to…

What is the point of your meeting? Can you define this purpose in 7-10 words?2. Today we will…

What are your four or five goals for today's meeting?3. Our time plan

Make sure everyone knows when it starts, when it ends and what happens in the middle.4. Who is doing what in the meeting?

What happens after the meeting? Who needs to do what and by when?

The power of collaborative learning.

Know yourself

Know others

Think of the other people you are working with

The power of collaborative learning.

Complications of virtual learning

What are the similarities and differences in your group? These may include:

These can make a difference to attitudes and behaviours, for example how prompt they are to meetings or how formal they are in group communications.

Creating rapport through common ground

The power of collaborative learning.

Technology for collaboration

What is the point of your meeting? Can you define this purpose in 7-10 words?

2. Today we will…

What are your four or five goals for today's meeting?

3. Our time plan

Make sure everyone knows when it starts, when it ends and what happens in the middle.

4. Who is doing what in the meeting?