The 5 Most Common Virtual Boardroom Mistakes (And How To Address Them)

Experience is a difficult teacher, giving the test first and the lesson only afterwards. But even minor mistakes can be costly in fields as dynamic – or volatile – as business and corporate governance, leading to wasted time, resources, productivity, and opportunities.

To maximize operations and results, more and more companies are exploring the benefits of adopting new technology like a board meeting software. But as with most digital solutions, it may take others more time and effort to fully embrace the paperless route.

One way to overcome the learning curve is studying the experiences of others and learning from them – especially from their mistakes. Another way is exhausting all possible outcomes and setbacks then anticipating solutions for each.

Each organization will have unique experiences of their own, but share common challenges when starting out with board portals.

Whether you’re a full-fledged techie or a self-proclaimed technophobe, you may use these tips to stop making avoidable mistakes and start making virtual boardrooms work for you:

Lack of Training

Is someone from your board of directors apprehensive about the digital shift? When an organization decides to implement paperless meetings, there’s bound to be a straggler or two who remains on the fence about the idea. Moreover, using and maximizing the software might come more naturally for some than for others.

Solution: Even if board portals come with comprehensive instruction manuals, it’s important to take into account the training needs of every user in your organization. By organizing a hands-on demo session for your team, everyone is given the opportunity to navigate the software and its features together in real time. Adopting a buddy system will help technologically challenged users overcome their fear of the unfamiliar by pairing them with more adept colleagues.

Poor Time Management

There are some instances where boards have participants that work from different time zones. Because of this, there is a risk that these board members may jeopardize productivity by fostering poor time management habits that delay key business agenda as well as waste precious time and resources.

Solution: This logistical challenge can be addressed by having virtual meetings that have the ability to conduct remote meetings anytime, anywhere. Moreover, it is important to include resources for time zone conversion in your meeting pack, such as links to time zone converter sites or reference materials. Schedule your meetings within a single time zone and double-check the equivalent time converted by other participants.

For a more hassle-free experience, invest in collaboration tools that offer full support for daylight saving time on both PCs and mobile devices. Its latest update eliminates the need to second-guess or calculate time zone differences as well, since the mobile app now automatically converts and displays date/time values based on the local time of your device.

Distractions

Even the most disciplined of professionals can’t attest to having laser-like focus on meetings all the time. Skeptics of board portals are especially wary of mobile devices as a source of distraction – and with good reason, given the plethora of apps stored in each device. Others would say the danger of being sidetracked is even greater for remote meetings, where there is no one to monitor you and what you are doing – or, more tellingly, what you are not doing – on your device.

Solution: Streamline your agenda. The key to the success of any meeting is efficient preparation. Agree on the issues and prepare all materials beforehand, but be prepared for developments and deviations from the discussion. In line with this, board portals give conveners the flexibility to update the agenda at any point, even while the meeting is ongoing. Most importantly, ensure that all participants are on the same page – literally and figuratively – with enhanced features like across-the-board screen locking and a real-time laser pointer.

Limited Accessibility

With more and more organizations proactively reducing their paper use, the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy is fast catching on as a boardroom practice. But regardless of how expensive or features-packed a board portal may be, its very purpose as a collaboration tool is defeated if access is limited to certain users or platforms.

Indeed, there is little else more disappointing than preparing for a critical remote meeting, only to find out that not everyone can participate because their devices are not compatible with your virtual boardroom software.

Solution: Users avail of hosted board portals for a reason, but at the forefront of those reasons is the need to collaborate with as many people as possible in real time. Real time collaboration is always important within a company. This is why hosted board portals are highly demanded for its ability to create digital co-working spaces for multiple people at the same time. Among the leading software solutions for paperless meetings, Convene delivers the total virtual boardroom experience with full multi-platform support for PC, iOS, and Android. In life as in board portals, why settle for what’s good when you can have what’s best?

Aversion to Digital Note-Taking

People often overlook the fact that the most important aspect of a meeting is not only what participants contribute, but especially what they take away from it. This comes in the form of note-taking, which, for many, is an effective way to process, retain, and act on information.

That’s why advocates of traditional meetings are quick to point out that in spite of technological advancements, there will always be people partial to making handwritten notes instead of tapping away at physical or on-screen keyboards.

Solution: Cut costs and get the best of both worlds with paperless productivity software that lets you handle digital files the same way you would use physical ones. For instance, Convene gives you not only the freedom to annotate, draw figures, flag important pages and leave sticky notes on your meeting files, but also provides you the option of sharing the same with your fellow participants.

With these tips, you’ll be better equipped with the knowledge of how switching to a virtual boardroom can lead you to maximize operations and deliver good results. Hopefully, by adopting this technology you will never make the same mistakes again.

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Learn more about our multi-awarded board meeting software, Convene.