A newly revised workshop of essential skills for successfully organizing and conducting online meetings with purpose and results
Facilitation may not be a skill mentioned often for leaders, but in a remote-first or hybrid work environment, the old-fashioned way of putting a meeting on a calendar with not much more than a placeholder, an agenda, and hoping you get to all the items with everyone on camera will not get the job done. It has only become worse if you are coordinating a group meeting on Zoom or Teams, or mixed between a conference room with a live group and a handful sitting in multiple time zones elsewhere online, and everyone is suffering from “Zoom Burnout”.
Virtual Facilitation is a necessary skill for a hybrid work world, particularly in coping with Zoom burnout and remote work here to stay. Run your online meetings like it’s 2022.
The practice of “facilitation”, as based in organizing and running meetings with objectives and agendas to fulfill, can be learned as a skillset. “Roberts Rules of Order” was a helpful guide through the 20th Century, but doesn’t account for today’s tech-driven business and all that we know now about improving communication, decision making, and productive outcomes when we put ourselves and tech tools to their best use. Facilitation is a legitimate professional practice, making meetings of all kinds and sizes run smoothly, regardless of purpose or subject matter. Today it means combining soft skills of guiding people to communicate (and listen) openly and clearly, while often managing technology to get that communication to be as easy as if all were in the same room.
Lizard Brain’s certified facilitators, headed by Brian Tarallo, have studied and practiced the art and science of facilitation over hundreds of hours, managing groups of multiple sizes in single meeting rooms, online at the same time across the globe, and hybrid mixes from small conferences to multiple-day symposia. VR meetings are happening now with Lizard Brain’s guidance, mixing Quest, Vive, and other HMD wearers in a common space that fully yet only exists virtually in a metaverse near you.
Brian and his cohort began running training programs on managing remote meetings just as the Pandemic forced the typical remote worker to stay home and learn how to get on a Zoom call and manage meetings within little to no preparation. In the past 2 years, Lizard Brain has revised and renewed the program, to keep up with both the changes in technology and the challenges that Zoom burnout and the hybrid some-return-to-the-workplace has created.
The latest, 2022 version of the online workshop will be offered for the first time Friday, March 25 from 9-12PM (ET), and the description of the program is below:
In a 3-hour interactive, online workshop, we’ll cover best practices and modalities for virtual facilitation. We’ll show you how to translate your favorite in-person modalities to the virtual space. We’ll cover how to prevent distractions, increase engagement, and have truly productive and fun virtual meetings.
This is a hands-on, experiential workshop! Along with other participants from around the world, you’ll brainstorm ideas, inclusively decide from among those ideas, and collaborate to create your own virtual modality! To give you practice with small groups and specialized attention, we’re limiting this workshop to 18 participants.
THE LINK TO SIGNUP IS BELOW:
Here’s just a few things that will be covered:
- How to clear distractions and respectfully invite participants to remain present and engaged.
- How to “set the table” for virtual facilitation by communicating a clear outcome, agenda, agreements, and roles
- Orientation to the two virtual collaboration platforms we’ll be using, Zoom and MURAL
- Brainstorming using a collaborative, digital stickywall and whiteboard
- Modalities to prioritize and decide between options that makes use of many hands at once
Brian and Lizard Brain invites you to “come as you are”. Because facilitating in your pajamas is awesome.
{Disclaimer: Dean Meyers receives no compensation for posting or reviewing this Workshop}
