From a technical information base to a collaborative platform, Confluence has steadily advanced right into a content material collaboration hub for each staff in your organization – and for good cause. Confluence addresses a vital situation plaguing most organizations, particularly those that have adopted distant or hybrid work: fragmented communications.
On common, eight conferences per week takes place throughout all worker sorts and firm sizes. And research have proven that 30% of assembly individuals don’t full motion objects as a result of they’ll’t bear in mind key info after a gathering. To maintain monitor of those duties and guarantee a extra seamless collaboration course of, it’s essential for groups and leaders to have ongoing conversations about what instruments they need to use to assist run their conferences.
The answer for a lot of groups that use Confluence is among the Assembly Notes Templates for extra unified communication. We’ll go over extra Confluence finest practices like this to run extremely efficient conferences that may be a recreation changer for you and your organization. (Spoiler alert: it’s all about cautious assembly design and utilizing the correct productiveness instruments to help you!)
1. Maintain the participant record brief however embody spectators utilizing @mentions
Whereas protecting the participant record brief is a finest observe for protecting a gathering productive, it’s equally necessary to keep away from making anybody really feel excluded and unheard – generally known as assembly FOMO (“concern of lacking out”).
Nice leaders orchestrate conferences in a approach that evokes 100% participation. To do that, you first want to grasp the distinction between individuals and spectators and weed out the spectators. Members are those that actively contribute and are empowered to make choices and symbolize necessary stakeholders. Spectators are sometimes marked as “non-compulsory” attendees on the calendar invite. Like a fly on the wall, they principally observe what’s occurring and is likely to be there due to assembly FOMO. However in the long run, they don’t make productive contributions.
Positive, it’s nice to have everybody included in each assembly, however it’s not at all times possible. By limiting the variety of non-compulsory attendees and CC’ing them utilizing @mentions on Confluence, these staff members can bounce into the dialog at their comfort. Together with a gathering overview and venture statements on Confluence must also assist everybody keep within the loop with out being pressured to take part.
CC’ing members on the Confluence assembly web page
2. Create an agenda and make it open to contributions
When you’ve gotten a set assembly agenda, you are inclined to take advantage of out of the session. Confluence assembly agendas are constructed round dialogue matters and targets that may be open for contributions. This fashion, each member feels accountable for the end result, and targets are addressed extra transparently.
Agenda and collaboration in Confluence assembly
You should use a Confluence assembly web page to collaboratively plan the agenda forward of time. Keep in mind, motion objects with @mentions and due dates can be used for preparation duties. Having a structured assembly and with the ability to collaborate on that construction not solely improves productiveness but in addition the outcomes.
3. Hyperlink assembly agendas in calendar invitations
If a gathering agenda can’t be discovered shortly, folks can’t make a contribution. However extra importantly, they fail to organize for the assembly. As a result of preparation is essential for extremely efficient conferences, you must hyperlink assembly agendas in calendar invitations. You are able to do this by copy-pasting the assembly web page hyperlink within the assembly description.
The simplest strategy to implement this finest observe is through the use of the Meetical Conferences app. It provides seamless Confluence Calendar integration for Google Workspace and Confluence Outlook integration for Microsoft 365. This integration helps everybody discover and create assembly notes shortly and effectively, all from one place.
You possibly can add the assembly web page with only a few clicks from an built-in Confluence assembly calendar or set up the Confluence browser extension or Outlook add-in. This integrates Confluence web page creation in your current calendar app.
And for recurring conferences, you possibly can activate automation, which can auto-create pages for these conferences days prematurely and hyperlink the web page on the calendar invite.
Linking the assembly notes web page manually or with automation helps everybody discover the agenda simply, pull info from previous conferences when they should, and keep on high of their assigned duties. The complete featured model of the app could be put in from the Atlassian Market.
4. Get experience from totally different groups
Gaining further insights and information from different departments results in higher and extra correct outcomes. So whenever you need to run one thing by a staff that you just don’t usually work with every day, Confluence makes it simple by tagging anybody throughout the firm. For instance, you possibly can seek the advice of with a product supervisor from a distinct staff to ask for his or her ideas on a possible resolution for a brand new function. Merely choose the textual content, create a remark, and tag an individual utilizing the @point out to get their experience.
Tag members from totally different groups for his or her enter
5. Phrase agenda objects as questions
This can be a psychological hack that can enhance how you employ Confluence. As a substitute of writing obscure phrases and notes that solely you possibly can perceive, contextualize the discussions with detailed questions.
For instance, if the agenda is to grasp whether or not an company can supply a strong ROI for hyperlink constructing, you possibly can write “hyperlink constructing company analysis” within the agenda desk. However this may not supply a whole image to different individuals who don’t comply with your path of ideas. As a substitute, strive reframing your questions:
- “Does the company have demonstrable case research for related tasks?”
- “Will the funding be justifiable in the long term?”
Asking questions can spark discussions amongst staff members and provides readability to precisely what you’re pondering. As a substitute of simply questioning, you begin discovering options. This helps each you and your staff members come to conclusions and attain assembly targets sooner.
6. Take each private and collaborative assembly notes
It’s necessary to take private notes and collaborative notes with the staff on the identical time.
Your private notes could be way more inventive and can provide help to study and retain info in the easiest way for you. To not point out, it additionally helps you keep energetic and attentive through the assembly. However, a Confluence web page is extra helpful to document staff choices and motion objects and for recording necessary outcomes from discussions.
Motion objects ought to at all times be saved seen for everybody to see, in addition to resolution logs with their corresponding causes so that everybody’s on the identical web page.
Determination logs assist staff members measure progress and perceive how precisely every assembly reaches its end result. The extra sturdy and clear you’re by way of sustaining Confluence assembly notes, the smoother your conferences will run.
Open collaboration in Confluence utilizing a call log
7. Evaluate earlier conferences and motion objects
Productive conferences don’t work in a vacuum – they have to be tied again to the earlier conferences and developments to determine context. For this, you possibly can create open motion objects and assign them with the due date of the brand new assembly. This fashion, everytime you’re prepared to start out a brand new assembly, you’ll have stories prepared from the earlier classes.
Together with a Process Report Macro immediately in your assembly pages helps keep away from switching backwards and forwards between totally different pages. You should use the Meetical App to incorporate a report of all open motion objects in any recurring assembly mechanically.
Evaluate previous conferences
Surveying matters mentioned earlier helps create a cohesive assembly tradition and individuals really feel inspired to be concerned within the course of as a result of they know what’s occurring. Reviewing accomplished and open motion objects originally of every assembly additionally creates a way of progress.
To implement this finest observe, use the Process Report Macro in Confluence to create a listing of open and full motion objects in an area or nested in a mother or father web page.
In case you use Meetical’s automation to create your weekly assembly notes pages, the macro will mechanically be included and present all open motion objects inside a gathering sequence.
8. Make standing conferences async (principally)
Working asynchronous standing conferences is among the handiest Confluence finest practices. Regardless of being important, standing conferences could be slightly boring. Maintaining the stay check-ins temporary – say, quarter-hour or so – after which protecting the remaining async can enhance productiveness. Research present that in conferences which are not than quarter-hour, 91% of attendees listen. This quantity steadily declines till it reaches solely 64% in conferences over 45 minutes.
Experiment with async conferences
Create a desk for staff members to enter their knowledge and get them into the behavior of sharing detailed plans, highlights, and low factors of the week. By following detailed standing stories, you possibly can conclude weekly standing conferences sooner and spend extra time specializing in different targets. And if you happen to love automation as a lot as we do, have the participant desk mechanically generated for you, simply in time.
About Meetical
Meetical takes the spectacular premise of Confluence assembly notes and extends its performance with calendar integrations, seamless web page enhancing, and prompt sharing. With an automatic and complete note-taking instrument, you possibly can improve the productive minutes in a gathering and cut back the hours spent discussing the identical issues.
In a nutshell
Lots could be stated about an organization in the best way it runs its conferences. By integrating Meetical with Confluence finest practices, you possibly can create an inclusive and clear assembly tradition that everybody likes to be a part of.
