One reason meetings struggle to keep to time is because people lose awareness of the time. This is particularly evident when they are speaking.
As people’s involvement with the content increases, they lose their oversight of the process. As energy rises, it is not uncommon for people to lose their sense of how time is passing. The result is that they can make poor choices on the best ways to strategically use that time.
The visible presence of a timer helps to remind people that efficient meetings are not just about content. It helps them to see their responsibilities at the process level also. And this helps them to:
- Be brief and focused in their contributions
- Remain on topic
- Prioritise their discussions on the most important items
- Highlight quickly when the debate becomes unproductive
- Keep time on presentations and agenda items
Furthermore, the shared view of the timer empowers people to raise these issues as they occur.
Sadly, unlike their physical counterparts, virtual meetings rarely have a prominent clock on display. But there are ways to include one. In this article we will cover:
- Including countdown timers via the shared screen
- Adding countdown timers to a participant’s webcam
- Using countdown timers within the chat facility
- Putting countdown timers in the meeting invite
Including countdown timers via the shared screen
Screen sharing is a common component of virtual meetings. Usually in the form of presentations, or a slide of instructions. And sometimes as a shared resource such as a document or whiteboard.Where the shared screen is a PowerPoint slide, add in in a timer is very easy. One can easily be copied from the selection on the Timers page and directly pasted/placed onto the slide – see Countdown Timers in PowerPoint.
Where it is a shared screen (as opposed to a window) with different content. Clicking a Timer on the Timers page will open it up in a small window which can be placed into the shared screen and resized as appropriate.
Timers can also be easily be copied and pasted into other shared screens such as Whiteboard or Jamboard, and in shared tools like Trello.
Adding countdown timers to a participant’s webcam
Shared screens are not always helpful however. They can dominate proceedings, and conversations can often be more conducive in simple webcam to webcam(s) discussions. So, how then do you maintain awareness of time?Fortunately it is now relatively easy for the facilitator to include a timer via their webcam using simple free virtual webcam tools such as OBS and mmhmm. There are also options of Virtual Flipcharts with timers built in. This helps both timing and engagement.
OBS has an additional advantage in that it can act as the video for multiple dummy participants in a meeting (e.g. by means of browser windows). This makes it possible to include instructions and timers in the breakouts via the webcam feed of the dummy participants.
Where the meeting software allows for video in their virtual backgrounds (such as in Zoom) there are even virtual backgrounds which include countdown timers if required.
Using countdown timers within the chat facility
But not everyone is comfortable with the webcam timer options. Even though they are simple and free, it IS another thing to think about.So an alternative is to include the timer in the Chat facility.
Including the timer in Chat works far better in Teams than it does in Zoom. Teams includes a very helpful animated image when you past a timer URL into it (You can get appropriate Timer URLs [here]). As long as people keep their Chat panel open, the timers remain synchronised. If someone closes chat, they effectively pause their copy of the timer until they reopen it.
In Zoom Chat, people need to actively click the timer URL in order to open up the Timer separately. However, Zoom does have the advantage of the continuity of chat in and out of breakout. The facilitator can post the timer link into chat before splitting the group into breakouts. And this makes that link available to all breakout rooms.
In Teams however, breakout rooms start with an empty chat stream. But, it is not difficult for the facilitator for copy the timer URL and instructions to their clipboard. And then quickly whisk round the breakouts pasting that into each breakout chat.
Putting countdown timers within the meeting invite
Finally, Timers can also be pasted via the meeting Invite (or within any email). This means that participants can have their own individual countdown timer visible on the desktop. It will run from the moment that they open the invite to join the virtual meeting.
Within Teams, people can also upload timers, via the image option, into the channel dialogue. When they do this, they make it appear for everyone on the channel. If people keep the channel open when the Timer is uploaded, those timers will synchronise.
Track your progress to ensure the efficacy of this strategy.