#cabs
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<!here> Hey everyone! Wondering if anyone has advice or best practices for engaging virtual CAB meetings? We’ve had two in person CAB meetings this year with our North American Cohort and EMEA Cohort and we’re doing a virtual meeting at the end of October to gather the two cohorts as we head into 2025. The meeting will only be about 1.5-2 hours and we have 15 members in total across the board. So lots of attendee’s and not a ton of time, but I want to ensure it’s useful, people feel heard/can share and we make the most out of the time. Thanks in advance!
Hey @Elizabeth Hammersley my biggest tip here is send some things ahead of time and then ask your members what they would like to discuss. Also keeping the discussion topics very focused is a good way to ensure you're maximizing the time you have with them virtually.
I'll DM you with a copy of our agenda and I'm happy to chat more! I would also love to hear any learnings you have after yours. We have our in person meeting later this month and it's so much more work, but so much more fun too lol.
I completely agree here with Katlin. We now do more frequent virtual meetings but focusing on one topic. And having them come prepared to discuss certain areas around the topic. Good luck!
Yes, keeping it focused is great advice. Along these lines, I wouldn’t go any longer than 1.5 hours and in the future even keep it to one. With the last CAB I ran things got tricky past the one hour mark, and the CEO and I agreed to shorten it. We also used Zoom breakout rooms to some success, although you need to have engaging execs ready to run the smaller convos. Good luck!
We have 3 virtual CABs and 1 in person every year. Those are our C-Level customers. The virtuals have been struggling a bit for attendance and engagement. They're 2.5 hours long and are heavily product focused (what's in the roadmap, maybe a demo of it, and feedback to validate we're heading in the right direction). The last meeting's post-event survey showed a desire for more open discussion time. So our November virtual CAB, we're planning a much more open format with a survey of topics to discuss sent in advance. The in person CAB is one full day, half of which is topical breakouts. They love that.