Planning online team meetings, work sessions, and happy hours

In the midst of the past few weeks I find myself learning a new skill: online event planning. I once actually avoiding writing a blog post on hosting an online baby shower because I couldn't begin to figure out where you might begin. Three weeks into quarantine life and I'm starting to get the hang of it just a little bit better. It comes down to three things: your agenda, your preparation, and your technology.

But first let's consider where your team is beginning, are you:

• ...the team that was hanging out together all the time, knew each other's college nicknames, and food allergies? It's probably going to be an easy transition to online life for y'all because you're already starting with a level of comfort.
• ...the team that worked from the same office from 9am-5pm most days? You could hold a conversation around a water cooler and you might notice if your office mate got a new haircut. You're off to a good start. Things might feel a little awkward at first getting into each other's personal lives - with new work-from-home co-workers, and a glimpse into what the photos on your wall are.
• ...the team that has not connected on a level deeper than receiving emails from leadership who you may or may not know in reality. This is going to be a bit more of a transition for you, take it one step at a time and don't forget to count the small successes.

I've found in my experience there are two ways to build community - a grass-roots effort starting from the bottom up or leadership mandated fun from the top down. While the first one is definitely more fun, there's no reason you can't make the second one work. Once you get past the uncomfortable voluntold happy hour chatter, you just might find yourself with a new work friend to message in the middle of your day.

Now that we've got the big picture, let's take a look at the details:

Set the agenda.

Determine the purpose of the meeting from the get-go. The purpose could be anything from seeing each other's faces off camera, to learning new wellness techniques, to updating the team on a new client status, to presenting a deliverable. Now the key is to figure out how to accomplish your objective with as much engagement as possible.

Open with the mood you want to set for the event

If the event is casual, be casual. Share your real background with your (tided up) life mess showing behind, turn on your video even though you are wearing work out clothes or a t-shirt, and acknowledge up front that you understand that there may be distractions from the background.

If the event is more formal, the opening is still an opportunity to give everyone a chance to talk. Whether you ask them each a question, ask for their opinions, or just check in on how their day is going, actually hearing everybody's voice will remind you that there's a human on the other end of the line.

Not sure how to set the mood as the host? Share a story about your own life that aligns with the vibe you're going for. If you're going for personal, share a personal story. If you're going for professional, share a professional story. Stories are how we connect.

Don't skip the introductions

Giving everyone a chance to speak on the call is a key component to providing that in-person connection feeling. Whether it's everyone answering a quick question (recently I've used - what is your go-to morning beverage and what is one television show that you've seen every episode of multiple times) or just saying hello, it's nice to hear someone's voice and remind them that you care about them as much as the meeting content.

Make the event as engaging as possible

You'll need something to actually do, you can't just get everybody on a call and hope that the magic happens. Sometimes it does, but preparation for this is key.

Ask questions. Plan an activity. Invite your attendees to show up in the right state of mind.

Asking a question can be done through polling questions, voting buttons, having people respond in a chat window, or a round robin quick answer session.

Planning an activity can include playing games, doing an icebreaker, brainstorming an idea that needs more structure, watching a video together, or giving status updates.

Inviting your attendees to show up in the right state of mind could be done through having them prepare a piece of a deliverable, giving them something to read or watch beforehand, wearing a specific themed outfit, or designing a virtual background for the occasion. While it might just sound like pre-work, it's going to mean that your attendees were thinking about the event before they event hit "join".

Here's the thing about planning engagement though. You need to warn people that you're going to be asking for engagement. Give them a heads up. Let them know what the question will be. Don't choose them as the first person to draw in pictionary if they didn't volunteer. Ask them to be prepared to jump in when you reach a certain part of the meeting. By giving someone this notice, you're inviting them into the planning with you, making each attendee more accountable to the event outcome.

Not sure where to start? Ask!

There's no harm in doing a quick (even informal) poll of your crew to find out what would make a meeting most useful to them. If you're trying to engage a crew that's never met before, make sure your event has a very clear beneficial reason for them to attend. What will they get out of it? Why should they care? (And usually the first go-around, "networking is good for your career" won't work. Try something more along the lines of professional development or CPE hours.)

Ask your friends what has worked in their own meetings. How have they been able to engage team members who aren't currently sitting next to them? Talking through it with someone usually provides additional insights you don't see on the first pass.

It's all in the preparation.

As with everything else in the world, you prepare for the meeting so that when something goes off course you're able to steer the ship back to where it's supposed to dock. Planning a virtual meeting is no different, in fact it might be more important.

Know you your main facilitator is

I'm sure you all watched High School Musical. That's how I learned the word "playmaker". (I hear it's also a basketball word.) Know who your playmaker is going to be. Who's leading the team and calling the shots? Make sure you know who that person is going to be so that if something goes wrong, you know who to turn to for guidance. And if this main facilitator needs any technology assistnace, make sure somebody is on deck to help with that as well.

Do a dry-run

A co-worker suggested this for a recent meeting and it turned out to be a life saver. We talked about transitions, how the technology would work, and how to end the meeting in the strongest way (we decided it was polling our group of 80 people about how often they wanted to continue meeting moving forward).

Have a back-up plan

Even though you have a plan, a back-up plan never hurts. Especially when you're relying on technology. If you need to switch from video to phone, could you do it? If no one answers is talking at happy hour, do you have a list of questions or a game you could suggest to play? If for osme reason your video doesn't play, is there something else you can talk about, or a summary you can give?

Don't only prepare for yourself, prepare your attendees.

As I mentioned earlier, definitely prepare your attendees for when you're going to want them to engage, but also prepare them with what to expect for the meeting. This can be done by putting the agenda on a slide or talking them through what will happen. This way they're prepared for what the layout of the event will be and can prepared for what is next.

Make sure you know your technology

Don't just know the technology, know how to answer questions about your technology. Try it as the administrator of the event. Try it as an attendee of the event. What is the exact name of the button somebody is going to need to click to accomplish what you're trying to get them to do? Did you make time to share this with your audience in your agenda - with time for questions?

Figure out how to mute your audience members if they're not able to mute themselves. Warn people ahead of time if your conferencing system announces people when they enter and leave the room. And learn how to dial your client and key speakers into the call if for some reason their technology isn't working that day.

Technology is key.

As a new user of Zoom, I've found it to be a pretty incredible service in the past few weeks. Not only can I see all of my friends and co-workers in a neat little Brady Bunch grid, I also have the ability to share the sound from a screen I'm sharing with them and to break everyone out into breakout groups. All while in the comfort of my own home - or my island beach house, whichever virtual background I've chosen to have on that day.

Use the technology to your advantage. Add in polling questions. Give people a virtual white board to write on and stamp to vote. Play pictionary and have people swap breakout rooms at least once so that they get to hang out with a larger variety of people, but in smaller groups so as to facilitate more conversations (as executed by a co-worker earlier this week). Stop right before the end of your meeting to take a cool photo where you're all high-fiving each other (like happened at the end of a virtual birthday party I attended recently).

There's plenty of other technology that's also been fantastic for more casual virtual happy hour. Jackbox games have been a great way to connect in a more fun way. I hear Tabletop Simulator is an excellent way to play board games virtually. Programs like Quiz Kit and Kahoot can help you develop quizzo-type games to share with your team members. Random Word Generators are great to play pictionary or charades wtih your team. And I have my first Netflix Party this upcoming weekend.

There's been some growing pains in the past week, but every week I've learned something new about how to make all of these events as successful as they can be. And thanks to friends along the way who have helped me learn the information above.

In retrospect, a virtual baby shower probably wouldn't have been too hard. There's still plenty of opportunities to play games, offer advice, and do introductions - and the nice part is that it wouldn't have involved any melted candy bars in diapers.

What questiona and successes have you had arise in online event planning?