Running Effective Meetings For Dummies

Chapter 4

Choosing How You Should Meet

IN THIS CHAPTER

Deciding on the right meeting format — in person, virtual, or hybrid

Selecting the best meeting space

Figuring out how long your meeting should last

For decades upon decades, the way we held meetings didn’t change much. If you were having a meeting, you were meeting face to face. You selected a day and time, reserved a conference room perhaps, and then made sure everyone could gather at the right spot and at the right time.

As technology advanced, our ability to meet using other formats started to change. We were able to do teleconference meetings starting with some of the early speaker phones originally patented in 1935. It took another 70 years for video to become common enough for people to start having virtual meetings. However, these forms of meeting represented only about 10 percent of meetings in October 2019.

Then COVID-19 hit and those in-person interactions became off limits. Our standard operating procedures were sidelined for the safety of ourselves and our coworkers. What took the place of all those face-to-face meetings? Video meetings, by and large, which became the go-to for the vast majority of knowledge workers. ...