Best Practices for Online Facilitators
— Transforming Organizations, Revitalizing Communities and Developing Human Potential
How do you build bridges between the analogue and the digital world? Don’t let the space define you - define the space and bring your best skillset, toolset, mindset, and heartset.
Here are 10 Best Practices for Virtual Engagement we recommend:
Making participants responsible for Muting/UNmuting themselves.
Encouraging participants to “keep your video on” as appropriate - now more than ever - to be connected to the group.
Participants may pause their video when they speak for better bandwidth & audio quality.
Don’t try to split yourself in half: SHARE THE LOAD of facilitating and leading meetings by assigning clear roles like meeting lead, facilitator, chat monitor, recorder/ note taker etc. as needed.
Provide at least a basic agenda and tech basics up front to allow participants to feel settled as they enter your session.
Align the virtual group/ session. Virtual meetings can be challenging. You might have someone in a noisy office, someone else might be at home with kids in the next room, someone else might be one the phone in an airport. A simple moment of silence or a mindfulness exercise work great to help align virtual groups. Neurologically, what occurs is a pattern reset or pattern interrupt. Check out this breathing technique sometimes called 16-seconds, square breathing, or box breathing [https://youtu.be/-G_MhMzwunA?t=44].
Manage/Limit Round Robin Check-INs & Introductions as appropriate. Provide [in order of effectiveness] a word limit, sentence limit or time limit.
Use multiple screens to allow you to have a ‘share screen’ presentation screen to share slides - and additional screen real estate to manage the chat and participant options on a 2nd screen. You don’t have a seperate screen? Yes you do! Set up on your couch and use your laptop and an HDMI-connected TV. All you need is a long enough HDMI cable.
Use the chat feature for: tech support, Q&A, real-time feedback, and even “parallel conversations.”
USE BREAKOUT ROOMS! Enable each voice present, allow for creativity, and leverage virtual collaboration inputs in breakout rooms. To learn more about managing breakout rooms in Zoom see: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476313.
For more, see COVID-19 and Collaboration: Some Ideas and 8 Simple To-Dos for Virtual Collaboration during the Coronavirus Scare and the rest of our BLOG4change for more. Also check out Zoom’s Blog at https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/18/quick-info-how-to-zoom-new-videos and https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/09/working-from-home-tips-to-meet-like-a-pro.
Check out NEXUS4change’s webinar series of 30-min. high-impact change tool talks. Check our events page [www.NEXUS4change.com/events] for more.