Many project teams are nowadays spread across the globe and therefore cannot not (regularly) meet physically. Most of their meetings are performed virtually, usually by means of a web conference or a collaboration tool. The participants can see each other, establish a dialogue and chat via the online tool, they can work on documents, perform an online poll and akin.

However, virtual meetings are very different, in terms of process, atmosphere and relationship, to name only a few. Information exchange, decision making and short discussions work fairly well via virtual meetings. Brainstorming, lengthy development workshops for new products, services or ideation are rather difficult to perform via virtual tools. On the other hand, virtual meetings are an opportunity for cost savings, involving people working remotely (onsite or even from a home office) or performing projects on a short notice.

Using virtual tools requires a clear facilitation by the project manager. Below are a few thoughts what needs to be taken care of before, during and after a virtual project meeting:

• Prepare for the meeting: check dates and availability of participants, send an invitation with topic, agenda and a request for preparation, manage registration of participants and send reminder if necessary. Prepare yourself for the meeting, e.g. objectives, your contributions and how to facilitate and document the meeting;
• Set the stage: check background and light of your own laptop or computer, test equipment (audio, video, recording), prepare slides and a front page, care for any kind of distraction (e.g. mails, people entering your room, calls), but also prepare for participants calling or mailing with questions regarding the dial-in details;
• Facilitate the meeting: Welcome all participants (voice, chat, slide), summarize objectives, topics and agenda, ask for agreement or any other business, let the people introduce themselves and start main part, ask questions, listen and summarize, collect action items and close with a short feedback session, collecting lessons learned; and

• Follow up: Keep all updated through mail on outcomes, action items and assign tasks when not already done, involve people that not attended the online meeting and analyse ways of improving the next meetings

It is necessary to inform the project team during the kick-off (which should actually be a face-to-face meeting) about the procedures for virtual project meetings and keep them updated about potential changes. The project manager is typically the facilitator of virtual meetings. In the case of very large programmes, the programme manager may appoint a facilitator for virtual meetings, otherwise roles may be mixed up or it may be too complex to concentrate on both roles.