Hybrid Meetings – guest blog by David Powell
In this guest blog, David Powell, looks at some of the considerations needed to run a hybrid meeting.
David is one of the ARA Board’s Honorary Offices in the role of Secretary and has responsibility for facilitating the Officers’ Forum. One of the Forum's focussed on hybrid meetings and what we need to do to make these effective. David took that learning and with his own subsequent experience of facilitating a hybrid Board meeting brought this learning into a single space as a way of helping our Sections, Groups and Regions to transition from the online only meeting format, necessitated by the pandemic, to a blend of face-to-face, online and hybrid meetings. This is not intended as a definitive guide but more as a starting point and we would love to hear your own experiences of working with hybrid meetings.
Hybrid meetings
With the relaxing of Covid restrictions hybrid meetings combining a mix of in-person attendees and others joining by videoconference are becoming the new challenge. There are several excellent webpages out there that give advice on hybrid meetings and a quick google search will help you find these but many are behind firewalls and are based on a corporate environment.
The ARA’s All Officers Forum, made up of the volunteers who run the numerous ARA committees, met in January to discuss the topic. The ARA Board met in a hybrid format for the first time in March where some of the All Officer Forum discussions were tested. We thought we’d share our findings with you.
Does your event suit the hybrid environment?
While hybrid sounds a great idea it isn’t always the best option. Some events are not suited to the format, usually where they are highly collaborative or practical. Other events work far more efficiently online only: webinars and small team business meetings for example. Larger meetings, such as ARA regional meetings, can potentially work well as hybrid but will take planning. While we want to avoid “one zoom, all zoom” as the default, do think carefully before diving into hybrid.
Equipment required for hybrid meetings
This will involve a discussion with the host venue and may include additional costs for IT support or item hire. These are legitimate costs and where incurred by an ARA Region, Section or Group should definitely be included in the next ARA budget cycle.
The Board’s experience of their meeting suggests the following:
A MS Teams-enabled laptop linked to an ARA Teams account that hosted the meeting. The laptop required at least one USB and/or HDMI ports for peripherals. If using a Mac you may need to provide your own adaptors.
A reliable wifi or LAN connection
A projector and large screen, or a large TV, linked to the laptop on which the remote participants can be seen
A good quality mobile web camera to be positioned where as many people as possible in the room can be seen by those joining remotely. Think about positioning to avoid glaring light from projectors!
A good quality microphone and speaker. We had a large central microphone which also doubled as a speaker which was placed in the centre of the room.
As hybrid becomes more common, many host institutions will start to have the kit to allow this. It may all work through a single AV comms unit or it may be an awful lots of wires!
Also, and I can’t stress this strongly enough, test the set up before the meeting starts!
It is not recommended that people in the room join the Teams or Zoom meeting from their own laptops. This can lead to high pitch feedback loops, echos in sound quality and cause confusion through technology latency. If people are joining this way within the room it is strongly suggested they use earphones with a built in mic.
Preparing for the meeting
Preparation is half the battle.
Consider the agenda and event fully. Do you need to make alterations to ensure that the external participants have as good an experience as those in the room?
Test the technology for unexpected issues
Ideally, know who is dialling in and who will attend in person. If only one person is dialling in this may affect how you manage the meeting compared to 20 people dialling in!
Share contact details for an individual in the room who is the point of contact in the event of IT failures or issues
Think about meeting breaks and how this excludes or includes those joining remotely
Elect someone to manage the digital aspect of the meeting (set up, monitoring messages etc).
Consider buddying up individuals dialling with those who will be in the room in advance of the meeting. Direct messaging tools can help give those conferencing in a voice if things are missed or to flag up issues.
During the Meeting
Online meeting etiquette transfers well to the hybrid environment and is a good starting point, but trial and error will help you adapt to your needs.
The chair needs to set expectations around behaviour and participations at the start of the meeting
People could indicate they want to speak by raising their physical or virtual hand
People conferencing in should be encouraged to turn on their cameras in order to be part of the meeting. They should also give their full attention to the meeting, and not be doing other jobs at the same time unless this is unavoidable. It would be rude to do in a face-to-face meeting and a hybrid meeting is no different!
Elect someone to monitor the chat function of the meeting to ensure questions and issues are picked up. You may want to make this the only way questions can be submitted, even by those in the room (assuming they have access to the chat function on a phone or laptop)
If you take breaks then be clear to those conferencing in at what time the meeting will resume and be strict with this for those in the room.
Include those joining remotely in the pre-meeting small talk where possible
Everyone needs to be mindful that the people joining remotely are having a very different experience to those in the room and to adjust behaviour accordingly
Side conversations should be discouraged as they exclude those conferencing in
People in the room need to communicate as clearly as possible to allow microphones to pick up their speech. Those joining remotely shouldn’t be afraid to ask for clarification or for comments to be repeated if they are unclear.
If breakout sessions are to be used, then those conferencing in can be broken into different breakout rooms in Zoom or Teams to collaborate
Avoid eating crisps if you’re next to the microphone
After the meeting
Evaluation is always useful, and sometimes painful, but it is how we learn.
Poll attendees for feedback on what did/didn’t work
If the technology failed, look into why and learn from the mistake
Evaluate what wasn’t successful and don’t be afraid to change this in the future. Other technologies like JamBoard
Share your successes and learning through the All Officer Forum or by emailing forum@archives.org.uk