Working virtuallay or face-toface?

Working virtuallay or face-toface?

por Wilfried Dr Jacobs -
Número de respostas: 7

Dear all,

Thank you, Satu, for your initiative to open the disucssion about this important topic! After browsing through the discussion I see that we are sitting in a similar boat. I think that virtual meetings can be arranged more spontaneously and they are much cheaper. Virtual meetings are helpful for distributing news quickly and to get first feedback immediately. As mentioned by Vesa they are very useful for monitoring projects/actions.

On the other hand, virtual meetings are useful only for a limited topic and they should not last more than about 2 hours. My personal feeling is that virtual meetings are more exhausting and I assume that some participants fell (at least sometimes) to a kind of sleep. It is unavoidable that the concentration goes down. One reason might be that we humans need faces and gestures for really understanding what is the intention/problem of my partner in the group.

I think that at the beginning of a project/action/seminars face-to-face meetings are more eliglibe in order to get more familiar with each other although this is rather often not done (e.g., EUMETCAL-radar-course). The exchange of experiences and to perform brain storming via virtual meetings is rather difficult. Especially, in that case we need face-to-face. One additional reason is that we could use more media (e.g., flip chart or so) during face-to-face-meetings. I think that a training seminar without classroom part is not a good one.

I do not have any experience in virtual meetings where I can see the faces (in a good quality!). May be that this will help. My present opinion is that virtual meetings are well applicable as an additional tool, however, not stand alone. May be that this is also a question of culture and of my personal training. I have to guess that this technique is still rather new for me. I am really impressed to read from Vesa that almost everything since 1999 has been a virtual team to him.

Hear you tomorrow! A nice day,

Wilfried.

Em resposta a 'Wilfried Dr Jacobs'

Re: Working virtuallay or face-toface?

por Vesa Nietosvaara -
Wilfried,

great points - the duration, format and content are important elements to keep in mind when planning the virtual team meetings. I have found out that my focusing starts dropping easily already after 20-30 minutes,unless there is a change of topic or speaker or activity (well, listening to someone speaking is not really an activity but rather a passivity).

I have been listing some good practices for making the online meetings / virtual team meetings more effective. People, please comment and add more!


- All team members: Preparing in advance is crucial. Do not read the memos only while already in the session, but read them in advance. Find the topics important to take up in the discussion (problems, items needing a clarification, etc)
- Clear agenda: what is the goal of this meeting, what decisions we must make today?
- Short agenda; do not fill the session with long lists of topics. If lot of topics, split the agenda or split the group and have two sessions.
- Manageable topics: consider skipping controversial or sensitive topics, they are better to be discussed in a live meeting?
- Team leader to keep the time - do not let discussion get stuck in irrelevant details -they can be dealt later via email.
- Team leader to give everyone an opportunity to speak; don't let the talkative persons dominate.
- Allow team members struggling with language problems an opportunity to express their ideas with text/graphics.
- Session should last no longer than 2 hours, and after 1 hour should have a break. (Unless the team members are really passionate about the topic!)

Em resposta a 'Wilfried Dr Jacobs'

Re: Working virtuallay or face-toface?

por Anni Simola -
Well thanks so much, that's already several useful points and Vesa's list was really comprehensive! Two points came to my mind. The first one: it takes time to learn and to get used to tools and working methods. I believe the quality of the meetings is likely to get better over time. Second: we come to the meetings with different expectations and different skills which sometimes raises tensions (to my experience). It might be good to be clear of the working method as well (e.g. how formal/informal discussion).

Thanks,
Anni
Em resposta a 'Anni Simola'

Re: Working virtuallay or face-toface?

por Ian Bell -
Hi All,

My first experience was with good in-house videoconferencing for an ongoing committee I was on. We would often have one or two members who worked in our interstate offices attend via video. We all agreed it was more effective when they were physically present, but it was effective (and certainly saved travel time and costs).

I recently planned a nowcasting course with people from USA, Canada and EUMETSAT via email, supplemented by a long phone hook-up with North America. It worked well. I'm sure the fact that we all knew each other and had worked together before helped.

Like everyone else, I think it's not so much the medium that matters but being clear about what you are trying to achieve. Face to face meetings can be equally frustrating.

Years ago I was on our workplace Union committee. Meetings were awful - we ran out of time before we reached the important items, people talked on and on, often off-topic, etc, etc. I'm sure you have all been there!

We introduced an agenda with clear goals for each item and allocated times for each, including a 10 minute buffer so we could choose to continue with items if necessary. We stared with the essential items. We had a time keeper who, importantly, was NOT the chair, who would warn when allocated time for an item was nearing its end. We would normally then bring it to conclusion but, if we thought it was important to continue, we would make an explicit decision, allocate a new amount of time and, if necessary, decide which item would not be covered that day. We would always finish on time.

Information items were circulated before the meeting as it is much quicker reading them than having someone speak or read them aloud.

Our frustration levels lowered considerably and we were far more productive.

I know there are special issues in working virtually and meetings are, of course, only one aspect. A short book on meetings I like is:

Running Meetings (2006), Harvard Business School Press



I'll attach a pro forma from it for agendas and follow-up action.

Everyone else has already made many good points. As with teaching and learning, it's not so much the medium as having clear objectives and strategies.

cheers

Ian Bell

Em resposta a 'Ian Bell'

Re: Working virtuallay or face-toface?

por Alessandro Chiariello -
Hi everybody,

I think we shall consider, instead of the question "Working virtually or face-to-face?", the statement "How working virtually and face-to-face!", as it has been stressed between the lines in the previous posts.

Working virtually is being made possible and I believe the technological platforms will continuously evolve and offer additional possibilities. The challenge is: how?

We did not have "working virtually" before and now we have: it is not only a chance we have, but it will be also a must; I hope you agree on this.
Hence we should put efforts in exploring the best techniques and strategies on how to reach the best equilibrium between these two different media.
And I see we are heading towards this direction smile.

Cheers,

Alessandro

Em resposta a 'Alessandro Chiariello'

Re: Working virtuallay or face-toface?

por Kathy-Ann Caesar -
Good Day everyone..

I really appreciate this discussion and the helpful hints .. I agree with Ian as well that the medium does not matter, the experience but be made interesting and well planned.

However in my limited experience in doing virtual meeting online is sometime that almost refusal of some to say a word, which is very difficult in a virtual forum. I know it something that need work and encouragement but in cases where person are not passionate or dedicated to the the meeting or discussion .. it could be a frustrating venture for the presenter.

As I go forward to prepare my own virtual courses I will gladly use all relevant tools suggested in this forum and any other suggestions offered.

Regards
Kathy
Em resposta a 'Kathy-Ann Caesar'

Re: Working virtuallay or face-toface?

por Luciane Veeck -
Hello All,

I feel rather late writing to the forum only after the online session, but to be honest, I am still stretching my legs out of the holiday and shaking the sand off my sandals…

On this theme of “working virtually or face-to-face”, I must say that I spend more time in the virtual world, which for me still feels like a giant experimental lab.

I work mostly with large virtual teams (20 plus), both in an international programme and in my teaching. My biggest challenge is to find a way to personalise the communication with the team to a level where a more informal exchange of ideas starts to happen. The difficulty on achieving this is that people feel comfortable at different levels of informality, with some taking longer to untie their shoes whilst others will just walk in bare feet from the first email exchange. The variety of cultural backgrounds within the group plays an important role here.

I have found that this “informality” comes naturally once trust is established. Then I go to Anni’s last slide: ”Do you trust someone you don’t see?” Yeh, yeh, yeh… I can already see some of you laughing now and saying that trust can be even harder to establish. Well, I think trust can be established once partners achieve something together – a shared success. This is not different in the virtual world. It can be something as simple as writing up an abstract together and being able to submit it by the deadline.

OK, I guess I just wanted to throw in my thoughts of how drops of informality can contribute to effective team communication – be it virtual or face-to-face. I am glad Pat mentioned the word “informal” and Anni the word “trust” during the online session.

Speak soon,
Lu ☺