Did you know that 43% of board members believe that virtual meetings are less productive than face-to-face meetings? These statistics may come as a shocker for many as the world is moving towards digital board meetings. Virtual meetings are a great alternative to on-site meetings but they are hard to manage as well.
Factors like insufficient planning and low-quality online meeting tools significantly reduce the effectiveness of virtual meetings. However, using high-end solutions like online board portal software boosts the chances of more organized board meetings.
Here are some important tips on how to plan your board meetings and how online board management solutions like board software can help.
How to plan and conduct an effective board meeting in 2024?
It is 2024, and organizations, especially nonprofits, are looking to minimize their expenditures and maximize their output. Virtual meetings may be hard to manage, but they are highly cost-efficient, which makes them one of the best practices for nonprofit boards. Here are a few important things to follow when planning and managing board meetings.
1. Pre-meeting preparations
The foundation of any successful board meeting is setting a clear meeting agenda. The board secretary or the meeting organizer must collaborate with the executive director and meeting chair to prepare a meeting agenda that not only addresses all the affairs to be discussed in the meeting but aligns with the organization’s strategic goals as well.
Using board meeting management software like the board portal simplifies the agenda-making process. Generally, high-end board management software has built-in agenda templates designed for different types of organizations. These templates are customizable and reduce the unnecessary workload for organizers.
Board portal software allows the board chair and meeting organizer to collaborate on the same platform while making the agenda.
After finalizing the meeting agenda, here is what should be done.
Distribute meeting material in advance
It is important to share relevant financial statements, reports, and other important background information well before the meeting. Doing so allows participants to prepare better and come up with thoughtful questions or arguments.
Schedule a time that suits all participants
Not considering participants’ calendars before setting the meeting time/date is an unwise decision. Virtual boardroom software can be helpful here as it offers scheduling tools that allow meeting organizers to schedule board meetings according to board members’ schedules.
Confirm attendance
The board secretary or meeting organizer should reach out to the expected participants and confirm their attendance. If there are any conflicts, address them accordingly. Safe and flawless communication inside and outside the board is one of the main board secretary duties.
2. In-meeting management
During meetings, time management is the most crucial success factor. It is important for the meeting chair to allocate appropriate time for every item and every participant and ensure that all the discussions and activities are according to the meeting agenda.
In addition to that, here is what the meeting chair and organizers need to consider.
Listen actively
It is important to pay attention to all participants’ viewpoints. Ask questions whenever there is ambiguity and summarize the points to make sure all the participants are on the same page.
Use facilitation techniques
Encourage all the meeting participants to take an active part in the meeting, manage disagreements in a constructive manner, and promote open dialogue.
Clarify decision-making process
If conflicts arise related to any agenda item, inform the participant about the decision-making process. That said, if there are disagreements on a specific matter, clearly inform the participant that it will be resolved via voting or consensus. If the process involves voting, make sure everyone is fully aware of the procedure. Board of directors software usually has built-in voting tools, which make the process simpler.
Prepare accurate meeting minutes
Meeting minutes are one of the most important documents used after board meetings. Make sure the meeting minutes are accurate in terms of key decisions and action items. One way to streamline this process is to use a meeting minutes builder in your board meeting software, like board portals.
In addition to these factors, it is important to have features like electronic signatures in your board management platform. This feature becomes a necessity in online meetings if there are action items to be signed.
3. Post-meeting management
The process doesn’t conclude once the meeting is over; it is necessary to efficiently manage the post-meeting stage.
The most important step in the post-meeting stage is to ensure that participants, investors, and stakeholders get a copy of the meeting minutes.
Second, the concerned person must assign responsibilities to the board members, set deadlines, and keep track of the progress.
Last but not least, it is important to evaluate the meeting. Ask the board members to share their feedback and use that data to measure the effectiveness of the meeting and what can be improved in the future.
Summing it up
When planning a board meeting, it is key to address the different stages of a meeting. There should be a clear meeting agenda, and the meeting time and date should be set after consulting all the participants. Also, there should be a clear plan of action for in-meeting and post-meeting activities. Using reliable virtual board meeting software like board portals can streamline these processes.