Higher education institutions are adopting all-remote board meetings because of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s important that they take measures to ensure effective collaboration and decision making during these crucial virtual meetings. To maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of boards institutions must concentrate on three elements of meeting organization:
Make sure that the attendees can join on any device and from any location. A cloud-based portal with video conferencing can make it easier for trustees to attend meetings and access them from any place.
Create an agenda to guide your meeting. The agenda should be distributed at least a week before the meeting date to allow attendees to review it and create a the talk. Creating an agenda that includes time limits for each item will help keep the attendees how to run effective remote board meetings focused and stop them from getting distracted by wandering off. Also, be sure to include any off-agenda items and agree to reschedule the meeting for an alternative date if required.
Consider adopting a consent agenda to save time during the meeting for topics that aren’t controversial that don’t require input or discussion from all members. This will allow more time for a deeper dive into strategic issues.
Provide a clear description of proper conduct for virtual meetings with the expectation that participants will turn off their microphones when they’re not speaking. This is a simple gesture which can be a big help in the reduction of background noise and in improving audio quality.