Point Lookout: a free weekly publication of Chaco Canyon Consulting
Volume 8, Issue 15;   April 9, 2008: Remote Facilitation in Synchronous Contexts: III

Remote Facilitation in Synchronous Contexts: III

by

Facilitators of synchronous distributed meetings (meetings that occur in real time, via telephone or video) can make life much easier for everyone by taking steps before the meeting starts. Here's Part III of a little catalog of suggestions for remote facilitators.
The Samuel Morse Telegraph Receiver

The Samuel Morse Telegraph Receiver that was used to receive the message, "What hath God wrought," during the demonstration to Congress in 1844. Over the remainder of the nineteenth century, the equipment improved dramatically, but the demand for bandwidth grew even more dramatically. To limit costs, senders of telegrams turned to a vast array of so-called telegraph codebooks, which contained code words that stood for often-used phrases or sentences. Prior to sending messages, people would agree to use a specific code, and thereby save money and time in message transmission. For instance, "The Nautical Telegraph Code Book and Postal Guide," edited by Capt. D.H. Bernard (London, 1908), defines the code word seclusion, to mean, Sorry to say ship caught fire last night — serious damage".

Fifty years from now, people will write about our use of telephony for distributed meetings. They'll describe the artifices we use to resolve speaker identity, recognize speakers, and manage interruptions. And these devices will seem as quaint to people in the future, as the telegraph codebooks seem to us now. Photo courtesy Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

We cannot anticipate every problem facilitators might encounter in synchronous distributed meetings, but some are fairly predictable. And we can manage some of these problems more easily either by limiting their incidence, or by establishing protocols for them in advance. Here are three examples.

Identifying the speaker
In face-to-face (F2F) meetings, identifying the speaker is usually easy. We can either see the speaker, or we can recognize the voice, or tell which direction it's coming from, even if the facilitator recognizes the speaker by inaudible means such as a slight gesture.
In the distributed context, especially audio-only, identification can be problematic. To address the difficulty, the facilitator can recognize the speaker by name, and the speaker can begin by stating his or her name. And before the meeting starts, we can make available a podcast with attendees introducing themselves in their own voices.
Managing complex technologies
To support their telemeetings, some groups use complex technologies that go beyond telephone or videoconferencing. Tools for sharing drawing spaces, displaying slide presentations, and even manipulating physical objects all require special skills.
Although these technologies are at the frontier of remote facilitation, some useful practices have emerged. First, ensure in advance that all sites have operative installations. Pushing ahead when it's known that some sites don't have functioning installations risks corrupting meeting deliverables. Second, ensure that any participants who must use the technology have had adequate training. Third, have technical support staff standing by during the meeting for advice or repair if necessary. Finally, be prepared to halt the meeting and reschedule it if essential technology doesn't function correctly.
Dealing with interrupters
In F2F meetings, participants
who interrupt others create
problems, but facilitators
can handle them
In F2F meetings, participants who interrupt others create problems, but facilitators can handle them fairly easily. And when interruptions do occur, everyone can usually sort out what was said. In distributed meetings, especially over the telephone, we can't always identify the interrupter and we often can't sort out what was said.
"Zero tolerance" for interruptions is probably an impossible goal, but you can adopt practices that reduce their incidence. In advance of the meeting, establish a norm that prohibits routine interruptions, and establish a protocol for emergency interruptions. Circulate news flashes before the meeting or as a first agenda item to reduce the need for people to inject news during discussions. Interruptions that come about during heated debate are another matter; deal with repeat offenders privately.

Often, meeting size itself is a difficult challenge, because we don't want to risk offending people by excluding them. Making available a podcast of the meeting, and offering "podcast attendance" as an option for some people in advance, might tempt a few to attend by podcast. Unfortunately, as the facilitator, podcast attendance is not an option for you. First in this series  Go to top Top  Next issue: Organizational Loss: Searching Behavior  Next Issue

303 Tips for Virtual and Global TeamsIs your organization a participant in one or more global teams? Are you the owner/sponsor of a global team? Are you managing a global team? Is everything going well, or at least as well as any project goes? Probably not. Many of the troubles people encounter are traceable to the obstacles global teams face when building working professional relationships from afar. Read 303 Tips for Virtual and Global Teams to learn how to make your global and distributed teams sing. Order Now!

For an examination of some issues that arise in synchronous distributed meetings, see "Remote Facilitation in Synchronous Contexts: I," Point Lookout for March 26, 2008. For suggestions for facilitating highly charged distributed meetings, see "Remote Facilitation in Synchronous Contexts: II," Point Lookout for April 2, 2008.

Your comments are welcome

Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.

About Point Lookout

This article in its entirety was written by a 
          human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Getting a haircutCoaching and Haircuts
Lifelong learners use a variety of approaches, usually relying heavily on reading. Reading works well for some ideas and techniques, especially for those with limited emotional content. For adding other skills and perceptions, consider a personal coach.
Space Shuttle Columbia during the launch of its final missionHow to Reject Expert Opinion: II
When groups of decision makers confront complex problems, and they receive opinions from recognized experts, those opinions sometimes conflict with the group's own preferences. What tactics do groups use to reject the opinions of people with relevant expertise?
A beefsteak, with some amount of fatWacky Words of Wisdom: VI
Adages, aphorisms, and "words of wisdom" seem valid often enough that we accept them as universal and permanent. Most aren't. Here's Part VI of a collection of widely held beliefs that can be misleading at work.
Braided streams in Grewingk Glacier RiverDisjoint Awareness: Analysis
Breaking large problems into smaller parts can sometimes create a set of risks that make solving the problem in pieces more difficult than solving it as a whole. But we can still profit from breaking the problem into parts if we manage those risks.
Why we have so many virtual interviews now: no one is in the officeVirtual Interviews: II
The pandemic has made face-to-face job interviews less important. And so we must now also master virtual interviews, and that requires understanding the effects of the attendance list, video presence, and the technologies of staging, lighting, and makeup.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness, Effective Meetings, Project Management and Virtual and Global Teams for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

A meeting that's probably a bit too largeComing March 20: Top Ten Ways to Make Meetings More Effective
Meetings are just about everybody's least favorite part of working in organizations. We can do much better if only we take a few simple steps to improve them. The big one: publish the agenda in advance. Here are nine other steps to improve meetings. Available here and by RSS on March 20.
An informal meeting in a loungeAnd on March 27: Allocating Action Items
From time to time in meetings we discover tasks that need doing. We call them "action items." And we use our list of open action items as a guide for tracking the work of the group. How we decide who gets what action item can sometimes affect our success. Available here and by RSS on March 27.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

Reprinting this article

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Follow Rick

Send email or subscribe to one of my newsletters Follow me at LinkedIn Follow me at X, or share a post Subscribe to RSS feeds Subscribe to RSS feeds
The message of Point Lookout is unique. Help get the message out. Please donate to help keep Point Lookout available for free to everyone.
Technical Debt for Policymakers BlogMy blog, Technical Debt for Policymakers, offers resources, insights, and conversations of interest to policymakers who are concerned with managing technical debt within their organizations. Get the millstone of technical debt off the neck of your organization!
Go For It: Sometimes It's Easier If You RunBad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? Learn what we can do when we love the work but not the job.
303 Tips for Virtual and Global TeamsLearn how to make your virtual global team sing.
101 Tips for Managing ChangeAre you managing a change effort that faces rampant cynicism, passive non-cooperation, or maybe even outright revolt?
101 Tips for Effective MeetingsLearn how to make meetings more productive — and more rare.
303 Tips for Virtual and Global TeamsLearn how to make your virtual global team sing.
If your teams don't yet consistently achieve state-of-the-art teamwork, check out this catalog. Help is just a few clicks/taps away!
Ebooks, booklets and tip books on project management, conflict, writing email, effective meetings and more.