This document provides best practices for improving meeting productivity and effectiveness. It recommends that meetings have a clear objective that is communicated to attendees, have a designated facilitator to keep discussions on track, ensure common understanding of key terms, assign someone to take notes rather than relying on memory, summarize action items and next steps at the end, and gather feedback on meeting value. An alternative approach discussed is to distribute meeting materials in advance and have attendees silently read them for 5-10 minutes at the start rather than do presentations, allowing more time for productive discussion.
Improving Meetings and Meeting ProductivityBarry Cole
The lessons learned through twenty years leading meetings of various types around the globe. I have included as an addendum some recent sourced materials from others that may be of value in improving the value of meetings.
This training slides is to help you achieve quick wins in meeting session. It is action based and would help in quick decision making. Please visit www.facebook.com/SalesEnergyTraning for the conversation on this training.
There are several aspects to meetings: when to have them, who to invite, what structure and format to take and what type of meeting to run.
But first, why do we have meetings?
“Meetings are an opportunity and framework to get resolution, reach conclusion, share ideas and move forward – for those leading the meeting AND those attending”.
Find 5 things you can do to run more effective meetings.
The document outlines an agenda for a workshop on leading effective meetings. The workshop objectives are to help participants determine if a meeting is necessary, create an effective agenda, and facilitate the meeting to achieve its objectives. The agenda covers topics such as preparing for a meeting by determining its purpose and objectives, creating an agenda, conducting the meeting by following the agenda and documenting decisions, and following up after the meeting. The workshop provides guidance for making meetings effective through practicing facilitation skills and receiving feedback.
This document provides guidance on effective meeting facilitation. It discusses establishing clear desired outcomes, creating an agenda, setting ground rules, conducting the meeting through opening, content and closing sections, and following up after the meeting through publishing minutes and ensuring progress on action items. The goal is to have meetings that are essential, focused, established, collaborative, time-phased, initiative-minded and valuable.
This booklet is part of Step 4 – Communicating Information of the five-step documentation process (Step 1 – Capturing Information, Step 2 – Structuring Information, Step 3 – Presenting Information, Step 4 –Communicating Information, Step 5 – Storing and Maintaining Information). This booklet provides some basic tips, techniques, approaches and exercises for understanding and practicing how to apply documentation practices for creating highly effective meetings.
Slides to a two day workshop about hosting meetings and large events for communities and organisations. It\'s aimed at participant participation , experience and dialogue orientated.
Improving Meetings and Meeting ProductivityBarry Cole
The lessons learned through twenty years leading meetings of various types around the globe. I have included as an addendum some recent sourced materials from others that may be of value in improving the value of meetings.
This training slides is to help you achieve quick wins in meeting session. It is action based and would help in quick decision making. Please visit www.facebook.com/SalesEnergyTraning for the conversation on this training.
There are several aspects to meetings: when to have them, who to invite, what structure and format to take and what type of meeting to run.
But first, why do we have meetings?
“Meetings are an opportunity and framework to get resolution, reach conclusion, share ideas and move forward – for those leading the meeting AND those attending”.
Find 5 things you can do to run more effective meetings.
The document outlines an agenda for a workshop on leading effective meetings. The workshop objectives are to help participants determine if a meeting is necessary, create an effective agenda, and facilitate the meeting to achieve its objectives. The agenda covers topics such as preparing for a meeting by determining its purpose and objectives, creating an agenda, conducting the meeting by following the agenda and documenting decisions, and following up after the meeting. The workshop provides guidance for making meetings effective through practicing facilitation skills and receiving feedback.
This document provides guidance on effective meeting facilitation. It discusses establishing clear desired outcomes, creating an agenda, setting ground rules, conducting the meeting through opening, content and closing sections, and following up after the meeting through publishing minutes and ensuring progress on action items. The goal is to have meetings that are essential, focused, established, collaborative, time-phased, initiative-minded and valuable.
This booklet is part of Step 4 – Communicating Information of the five-step documentation process (Step 1 – Capturing Information, Step 2 – Structuring Information, Step 3 – Presenting Information, Step 4 –Communicating Information, Step 5 – Storing and Maintaining Information). This booklet provides some basic tips, techniques, approaches and exercises for understanding and practicing how to apply documentation practices for creating highly effective meetings.
Slides to a two day workshop about hosting meetings and large events for communities and organisations. It\'s aimed at participant participation , experience and dialogue orientated.
The document summarizes the 7 secrets of effective facilitation according to the author.
1) Great facilitators deliver outcomes rather than just outputs. They ensure sessions have clear objectives and action plans to solve problems rather than just discussing issues.
2) Facilitators must force participants to invest in the process emotionally to increase ownership of outcomes and success of implementing them back in the workplace.
3) Keeping discussions focused and moving towards conclusions is important to avoid getting bogged down in confusion. Facilitators must funnel discussions towards key action points.
Jenny Cham is a lead user experience architect at EMBL-EBI who facilitates workshops using techniques like gamestorming. Effective facilitation includes giving clear objectives and time boundaries, ensuring participants understand the task, and promoting discussion. Facilitators should involve all participants, ask questions to clarify outcomes, and reflect participants' ideas back to the group rather than providing their own answers. Proper facilitation requires suitable workshop spaces, healthy snacks, and good logistical support.
KM Australia Knowledge Cafe Workshop July 2011David Gurteen
The document discusses the concept of knowledge cafés and how to facilitate productive conversations. Some key points:
1) A knowledge café brings a group together for an open conversation on a topic of mutual interest to share ideas and gain a deeper understanding.
2) The process involves small group conversations at tables followed by a whole group discussion. The facilitator ensures all perspectives are heard without any person or group dominating.
3) Productive conversations are based on principles like suspending assumptions, welcoming differences, and allowing taboo subjects. The goal is not to reach consensus but have insightful discussions that lead to informed decisions and actions.
The document provides guidance on managing meetings effectively. It discusses defining the meeting task and desired outcomes. It also covers how to plan a meeting by creating an agenda, determining attendees and roles, and choosing a location. Additionally, it provides tips for starting, focusing on the agenda, facilitating participation, and concluding a meeting. The document also describes how to handle difficult meeting attendees such as talkers, whisperers, and silent participants.
Running effective meetings requires proper planning and facilitation. Key aspects include having a clear purpose, distributing an agenda in advance, keeping discussions focused and time-bound, summarizing decisions made, and identifying next steps. The meeting leader should ensure the right participants are invited, maintain order while encouraging participation, and close the meeting by reviewing actions and deliverables. Participants should come prepared, contribute constructively, and understand meeting norms like not interrupting others. With such guidelines followed, meetings can accomplish goals efficiently.
This booklet covers Step 1 Capturing Information of the five-step documentation process (Step 1 – Capturing Information, Step 2 – Structuring Information, Step 3 – Presenting Information, Step 4 –Communicating Information, Step 5 – Storing and Maintaining Information). This booklet provides some basic tips, techniques, approaches and exercises for understanding and practicing how to capture information effectively.
Professional business meetings is the womb to the process of decision making in successful enterprises, here I present a guide to how to conduct a productive & time saving business meeting.
This presentation focuses on strategies and tips for effective meetings and facilitation. Designed for the New Jersey Campus Compact and Bonner Foundation VISTA Leaders, it especially covers how young professionals in nonprofit settings might plan and lead meetings that contribute to the mission, effectiveness, and impact of their organizations.
1) The document discusses common failures of knowledge management (KM) projects and provides recommendations to ensure KM project success.
2) It emphasizes that KM projects should be business-focused and solve real business problems, rather than just implementing KM initiatives.
3) Intrinsic motivation should be relied on rather than rewards, as rewards can undermine motivation and knowledge sharing in the long-run. Business outcomes rather than KM activities should be measured.
This document discusses optimizing and effectively managing meetings. It provides suggestions to reduce the number of meetings, maintain important meetings, and increase time for routine work. These include identifying the real need for meetings, selecting the right audience, sharing clear agendas in advance, and having decision makers present. The document also discusses preparing for, participating in, and following up on meetings effectively. A survey was conducted which found that meeting times could be optimized by starting and ending on time, sharing meeting notes, and ensuring follow up actions are completed. Overall, the document aims to improve meeting effectiveness and efficiency.
Team facilitation is a process in which a neutral person (who is accepted by all group members and has no decision authority) helps the group identifies, solve problems and identify in an effective way.
How scrum teams can excel in a remote settingHina Popal
This session will go over how to make your scrum process friendly for a remote setting. Scrum thrives in settings where everyone is co-located but in the digital world we can not assume that teams working in the same office is the standard. How can Scrum work for your team when its now remote? Its simple! Tailoring the processes to meet your teams needs will allow you to continue working without reinventing the entire wheel. In this talk we will go over what our new remote norm looks like, what scrum is, steps to consider when tailoring, and tips on how to tailor some of the process based off of real world experiences working with remote scrum teams.
This document discusses effective meeting etiquette and strategies for making meetings more productive. It notes that meetings are important for building organizational culture but are often unproductive due to lack of organization, direction, or engagement from participants. Some tips for effective meetings include sending agendas in advance, having clear roles and objectives, keeping meetings brief, being punctual and prepared, and practicing active listening and non-verbal communication. Technology can also help make meetings more efficient when travel is required or attendees are geographically dispersed.
This document provides guidance on how to effectively plan and conduct meetings. It discusses determining the purpose and attendees of a meeting. It also outlines best practices for the meeting structure, including using an agenda, establishing ground rules, and assigning roles like facilitator, recorder, and manager. Key aspects covered during the meeting include respecting the agenda, being outcome-oriented, and taking minutes. Follow-up after the meeting involves summarizing decisions made and next steps assigned with deadlines. Managing difficult situations that may arise and ensuring the meeting stays on track to achieve its goals are also addressed.
business meeting is the comman part in corporate use.this PowerPoint slide can use for steps use in business meetings in world.communications use in business meetings.types of business communication use in business meetings.
How do you run a more meaningful meeting? This presentation outlines meeting tips from the pros, our agency’s standards for better meetings, and a whole list of resources.
The document discusses 5 tips for making meetings more effective: 1) Set a clear agenda in advance; 2) Stay focused on the agenda and guide discussions back on topic if needed; 3) Only invite necessary attendees; 4) Designate a timekeeper and start and end meetings on time; 5) Close meetings by identifying clear action items, responsibilities, and decisions made. When implemented, these strategies can help transform meetings into productive tools that benefit workplaces.
Here is a guide of reminders of pre-meeting, during meeting, and post-meeting etiquette rules for planning and meeting in a virtual meeting environment.
The document is a newsletter from Charisma Productions Network discussing upcoming July 4th celebrations and providing tips for effective off-site meetings. It encourages remembering the historical significance of Independence Day while enjoying festivities with family and friends. The newsletter also outlines principles for well-designed off-site meetings, such as ensuring the right attendees are present and that the meeting style matches the goals. Tips are provided for organizing documents and files.
The newsletter discusses upcoming Independence Day celebrations and provides meeting planning tips. It encourages readers to celebrate with family and friends while also remembering the historical significance of Independence Day. Additionally, it offers principles for effective off-site meeting design, such as ensuring the right attendees are present and that the meeting structure aligns with its objectives. Meeting facilitation company Charisma Productions Network is highlighted as being able to help design impactful meetings.
The document summarizes the 7 secrets of effective facilitation according to the author.
1) Great facilitators deliver outcomes rather than just outputs. They ensure sessions have clear objectives and action plans to solve problems rather than just discussing issues.
2) Facilitators must force participants to invest in the process emotionally to increase ownership of outcomes and success of implementing them back in the workplace.
3) Keeping discussions focused and moving towards conclusions is important to avoid getting bogged down in confusion. Facilitators must funnel discussions towards key action points.
Jenny Cham is a lead user experience architect at EMBL-EBI who facilitates workshops using techniques like gamestorming. Effective facilitation includes giving clear objectives and time boundaries, ensuring participants understand the task, and promoting discussion. Facilitators should involve all participants, ask questions to clarify outcomes, and reflect participants' ideas back to the group rather than providing their own answers. Proper facilitation requires suitable workshop spaces, healthy snacks, and good logistical support.
KM Australia Knowledge Cafe Workshop July 2011David Gurteen
The document discusses the concept of knowledge cafés and how to facilitate productive conversations. Some key points:
1) A knowledge café brings a group together for an open conversation on a topic of mutual interest to share ideas and gain a deeper understanding.
2) The process involves small group conversations at tables followed by a whole group discussion. The facilitator ensures all perspectives are heard without any person or group dominating.
3) Productive conversations are based on principles like suspending assumptions, welcoming differences, and allowing taboo subjects. The goal is not to reach consensus but have insightful discussions that lead to informed decisions and actions.
The document provides guidance on managing meetings effectively. It discusses defining the meeting task and desired outcomes. It also covers how to plan a meeting by creating an agenda, determining attendees and roles, and choosing a location. Additionally, it provides tips for starting, focusing on the agenda, facilitating participation, and concluding a meeting. The document also describes how to handle difficult meeting attendees such as talkers, whisperers, and silent participants.
Running effective meetings requires proper planning and facilitation. Key aspects include having a clear purpose, distributing an agenda in advance, keeping discussions focused and time-bound, summarizing decisions made, and identifying next steps. The meeting leader should ensure the right participants are invited, maintain order while encouraging participation, and close the meeting by reviewing actions and deliverables. Participants should come prepared, contribute constructively, and understand meeting norms like not interrupting others. With such guidelines followed, meetings can accomplish goals efficiently.
This booklet covers Step 1 Capturing Information of the five-step documentation process (Step 1 – Capturing Information, Step 2 – Structuring Information, Step 3 – Presenting Information, Step 4 –Communicating Information, Step 5 – Storing and Maintaining Information). This booklet provides some basic tips, techniques, approaches and exercises for understanding and practicing how to capture information effectively.
Professional business meetings is the womb to the process of decision making in successful enterprises, here I present a guide to how to conduct a productive & time saving business meeting.
This presentation focuses on strategies and tips for effective meetings and facilitation. Designed for the New Jersey Campus Compact and Bonner Foundation VISTA Leaders, it especially covers how young professionals in nonprofit settings might plan and lead meetings that contribute to the mission, effectiveness, and impact of their organizations.
1) The document discusses common failures of knowledge management (KM) projects and provides recommendations to ensure KM project success.
2) It emphasizes that KM projects should be business-focused and solve real business problems, rather than just implementing KM initiatives.
3) Intrinsic motivation should be relied on rather than rewards, as rewards can undermine motivation and knowledge sharing in the long-run. Business outcomes rather than KM activities should be measured.
This document discusses optimizing and effectively managing meetings. It provides suggestions to reduce the number of meetings, maintain important meetings, and increase time for routine work. These include identifying the real need for meetings, selecting the right audience, sharing clear agendas in advance, and having decision makers present. The document also discusses preparing for, participating in, and following up on meetings effectively. A survey was conducted which found that meeting times could be optimized by starting and ending on time, sharing meeting notes, and ensuring follow up actions are completed. Overall, the document aims to improve meeting effectiveness and efficiency.
Team facilitation is a process in which a neutral person (who is accepted by all group members and has no decision authority) helps the group identifies, solve problems and identify in an effective way.
How scrum teams can excel in a remote settingHina Popal
This session will go over how to make your scrum process friendly for a remote setting. Scrum thrives in settings where everyone is co-located but in the digital world we can not assume that teams working in the same office is the standard. How can Scrum work for your team when its now remote? Its simple! Tailoring the processes to meet your teams needs will allow you to continue working without reinventing the entire wheel. In this talk we will go over what our new remote norm looks like, what scrum is, steps to consider when tailoring, and tips on how to tailor some of the process based off of real world experiences working with remote scrum teams.
This document discusses effective meeting etiquette and strategies for making meetings more productive. It notes that meetings are important for building organizational culture but are often unproductive due to lack of organization, direction, or engagement from participants. Some tips for effective meetings include sending agendas in advance, having clear roles and objectives, keeping meetings brief, being punctual and prepared, and practicing active listening and non-verbal communication. Technology can also help make meetings more efficient when travel is required or attendees are geographically dispersed.
This document provides guidance on how to effectively plan and conduct meetings. It discusses determining the purpose and attendees of a meeting. It also outlines best practices for the meeting structure, including using an agenda, establishing ground rules, and assigning roles like facilitator, recorder, and manager. Key aspects covered during the meeting include respecting the agenda, being outcome-oriented, and taking minutes. Follow-up after the meeting involves summarizing decisions made and next steps assigned with deadlines. Managing difficult situations that may arise and ensuring the meeting stays on track to achieve its goals are also addressed.
business meeting is the comman part in corporate use.this PowerPoint slide can use for steps use in business meetings in world.communications use in business meetings.types of business communication use in business meetings.
How do you run a more meaningful meeting? This presentation outlines meeting tips from the pros, our agency’s standards for better meetings, and a whole list of resources.
The document discusses 5 tips for making meetings more effective: 1) Set a clear agenda in advance; 2) Stay focused on the agenda and guide discussions back on topic if needed; 3) Only invite necessary attendees; 4) Designate a timekeeper and start and end meetings on time; 5) Close meetings by identifying clear action items, responsibilities, and decisions made. When implemented, these strategies can help transform meetings into productive tools that benefit workplaces.
Here is a guide of reminders of pre-meeting, during meeting, and post-meeting etiquette rules for planning and meeting in a virtual meeting environment.
The document is a newsletter from Charisma Productions Network discussing upcoming July 4th celebrations and providing tips for effective off-site meetings. It encourages remembering the historical significance of Independence Day while enjoying festivities with family and friends. The newsletter also outlines principles for well-designed off-site meetings, such as ensuring the right attendees are present and that the meeting style matches the goals. Tips are provided for organizing documents and files.
The newsletter discusses upcoming Independence Day celebrations and provides meeting planning tips. It encourages readers to celebrate with family and friends while also remembering the historical significance of Independence Day. Additionally, it offers principles for effective off-site meeting design, such as ensuring the right attendees are present and that the meeting structure aligns with its objectives. Meeting facilitation company Charisma Productions Network is highlighted as being able to help design impactful meetings.
Meetings, meetings everywhere but not an agenda to be found! (Gatto, 2016)
Ahh, Meetings: the great alternative to work. As conventional wisdom goes, if you want to be busy, do nothing, produce little to nothing, and yet get paid, set up and attend meetings.
This document provides guidance on organizing and running effective meetings. It emphasizes that meetings should be necessary and have clear objectives. When deciding to hold a meeting, the organizer should determine who needs to attend and the purpose. The key elements for an effective meeting are having a purpose, inviting the right participants, using an appropriate structure and techniques, choosing a good location and time, creating an agenda, assigning responsibilities, and sending confirmations. During the meeting, the leader should keep it focused on the agenda, control dominating individuals, and conclude by summarizing decisions and next steps.
The document discusses strategies for effectively conducting business meetings. It recommends: 1) Preparing the meeting by identifying the reason, approach, outcome, and providing an agenda in advance. 2) Managing the discussion by staying on topic, creating a comfortable atmosphere, and parking off-topic issues. 3) Identifying decisions or action plans by clearly recording them, announcing action items, and ensuring participants know their responsibilities. The goal is to avoid wasting time and money on unproductive meetings and instead use meetings as a powerful business tool by properly planning and conducting them.
Ahh, Meetings: the great alternative to work. As conventional wisdom goes, if you want to be busy, do nothing, produce little to nothing, and yet get paid, set up and attend meetings.
Large companies spend millions of dollars on SAP, ERP, Quality, and ISO processes, but do these practices really work? Or, are they like the latest medical wonder drug before the recall because of bad side effects? Such processes can create an approach to work but they only work equal to the leadership’s ability to implement and utilize the process intelligently and appropriately. How do you intelligently and appropriately implement these processes through meetings?
Group Exercise_Best Practices for Meetingsdaniel_hart
I developed this exercise for a technical writing class. It helped students work together and was an excellent introduction to best practices for meetings.
Some work events and tasks become so routine that it's easy to forget their purpose, or to think about how to make them more effective. Prime example: routine staff meetings. Here's a fresh look at how to make this workplace fixture more worthwhile.
The document discusses improving meetings and presentations in business. It makes three key points:
1) Most business meetings suffer from a lack of clear purpose and engagement where dissenting views are not discussed. Meetings should have guidelines to make them more productive.
2) The everyday meeting may be the most important communication vehicle for change if done properly. Transforming "meetings as usual" could create positive change for a company.
3) Productive meetings require having a clear purpose and focus, engaging participants in meaningful discussions, and resolving important issues rather than avoiding them. Addressing what's really at stake drives participation and progress.
This document provides 3 strategies for making meetings more productive:
1. Define objectives - Specify 1-3 topics for the meeting and determine expected results so it's clear if objectives were achieved.
2. Let everyone talk - Use a timer to ensure all attendees have 5 minutes to share their opinions to avoid some people dominating discussion.
3. Create a minute - Assign someone to take notes on key discussion points and agreements to distribute as a reminder and record of the meeting.
This document provides an introduction and guidance for launching a new "Lunch & Learn" program. The program is intended to foster cross-functional relationship building, learning, and skill development within teams. Key points include:
- The program began in Chicago and allows employees to learn about other roles, developments, and share perspectives outside their usual work.
- Regional leads will plan monthly lunchtime sessions focused on themes like career transformations, professional development, and open discussions.
- Guidance is provided on setting goals, roles and responsibilities, content ideas, and tips for planning successful sessions.
- Quotes from leadership emphasize benefits like keeping up with changes, encouraging growth, and strengthening relationships across functions.
This document provides 10 tips for effectively managing meetings based on a Harvard student's module on meeting skills. The tips include recruiting a strong diverse team, creating a conducive workspace, allowing equal participation, establishing an innovative brainstorming process, ensuring collaboration, balancing work and fun, achieving consensus, sharing responsibility, following up after meetings, and reviewing meetings for continuous improvement. For each tip, the student provides their personal perspective on how to best implement the suggestion based on their experience leading meetings.
The document discusses effective team membership and running meetings. It defines the difference between groups and teams, with teams having a shared goal. Keys to effective team membership include making your team better by treating others as they want and need to be treated, and rewarding team members. When running a meeting, the leader should plan the objective, inform participants, prepare an agenda, structure discussions, and summarize decisions and action items. The overall goal is to make meetings effective and productive.
Leading effective meetings facilitator guideLaura Staley
A facilitator guide for a class on leading effective meetings. It goes with this presentation - http://www.slideshare.net/LauraStaley1/leading-effective-meetings-slides.
UNIT II ppt- 351 LA 31- Soft skills.pptxVeniceAntony
This document discusses meetings, group discussions, and business letters. It provides definitions and types of meetings, including quick business meetings, stand-up meetings, staff meetings, and board meetings. It outlines objectives and reasons for holding meetings, as well as how to prepare, conduct, and follow up on meetings effectively. Key aspects include setting clear objectives, planning an agenda, considering obstacles, and deciding on outcomes and follow-up activities. The document also discusses minute taking and best practices for writing minutes that accurately and concisely summarize discussions and decisions.
The document provides tips for engaging event participants through effective meeting design and presentation techniques. It recommends building a meeting design team, aligning the meeting with business priorities, leveraging technology, incorporating human touches, integrating messages, and using techniques like interview-style presentations, breakout sessions, and networking opportunities to encourage participation and feedback.
The document provides tips for engaging event participants through effective meeting design and presentation techniques. It recommends building a meeting design team, aligning the meeting with business priorities, leveraging technology, incorporating human interaction, integrating key messages, and using techniques like interview-style presentations, breakout sessions, and networking opportunities. The goal is to educate, inspire, and motivate attendees through face-to-face interaction rather than one-way presentations.
Effective Business Meetings
The PPT helps to inform audience regarding effective business meetings and how to engage people of different hierarchy into successful business meetings. More emphasis is on business correspondence.
Effective Business Meetings
The PPT helps to inform audience regarding effective business meetings and how to engage people of different hierarchy into successful business meetings. More emphasis is on business correspondence.
Similar to Improving Meetings and Meeting Productivity (20)
2. Planning &
Execution
Why Are Meetings A Productivity Issue?
In surveys to identify the biggest productivity killers,
meeting schedules are near the top of every list.
After many years guiding change in organizations around
the globe, I have often made the tongue in cheek
comment; “We live for meetings”. For many leaders, this
is an unfortunate truth.
Another unfortunate truth is that many meetings are much
less productive than they needed to be.
4. Planning &
Execution
Why Are We Having This Meeting?
Ask the simple question at the onset of the meeting, "What is the
objective of this meeting?"
This exercise will prove invaluable in terms of ensuring everyone
is on the same page and focused on keeping the meeting on point.
Otherwise meetings regularly devolve into endless distractions
unrelated to the matter immediately at hand.
A best practice approach is that:
The objective and expected outcome of each meeting should be
published and accepted by each invitee.
The cultural “ground rules” must permit each invited attendee to
question whether a conversation is consistent with the meeting
objectives and call that the discussion be tabled to a later time.
5. Planning &
Execution
Who Is Driving?
Each meeting needs one person behind the wheel. If there is more
than one driver and it will be very difficult to keep the meeting on
track without an effective “wreck”.
• The primary role of this facilitator or point person is to ensure the
conversation remains relevant and that no one person (without regard
to position) ends up dominating the discussion.
• This person must have “permission” to ensure that any adjunct
discussions that arise during the course of the meeting are taken
offline.
6. Planning &
Execution
Is There a Common Language?
Take the time to define semantics (and ground rules)…. After
many years facilitating meeting, it never ceases to amaze how
often meetings go off the rails by virtue of semantic differences.
Picture a multi-national gathering without a real-time translation
and you have the right mental picture.
• It is always worth investing time upfront to ensure everyone is on the same
page in terms of what certain keywords, phrases, and concepts mean to the
various constituencies around the table.
• For ongoing meetings, creating and maintaining a reference glossary is
recommended.
7. Planning &
Execution
Why Do You Need a Scribe?
Allow the facilitator to focus on the meeting. Assign someone
other than the facilitator to take notes who is well versed in the
meeting's objectives and who has a clear understanding of context.
• This person is appointed to capture only those most salient
points. These notes should not be a “word-for-word” account,
rather a high-level record of what was discussed and agreed to.
• The goal is to avoid multiple people recalling one event in
multiple ways. Send these notes out after the meetings with a
call for agreement, additions, or corrections.
• This practice can also be particularly valuable for invitees who
weren't able to make the meeting.
8. Planning &
Execution
Is There A Best Way To End Meetings?
Summarize key action items, deliverables, and points of
accountability. Do not end a meeting without summarizing key
conclusions, stakeholder expectations, any external deliverables, and
next steps/action items with the points of accountability for each.
• This summarization is most commonly the first thing to suffer if the
meeting has run up to the wire and people are starting running off to
their next scheduled event. It is however arguably the single most
important thing you'll do at the meeting (and may quintessentially be
considered the reason for the meeting to begin with).
• Work to allow the needed time and create the discipline a ensures
attendees sit tight and remain focused while next steps are being
discussed and agreed to.
9. Planning &
Execution
Do Attendees Agree to the Meeting’s Value?
Ask what can done better….
Gather feedback at the end of meetings, particularly if it's a new
standing meeting, by asking whether or not the attendees found it
valuable and what can be done to improve it in the future.
1. Ascertain: “Is the meeting structured appropriately or even
necessary?”
2. If it is not, either change the objective, format, and/or schedule, or
take it off the calendar.
11. Planning &
Execution
Addendum:
An Alternative Approach To
Improving Meeting Value
Attribution
The following information was synthesized from previously published materials that offer real
food for thought in making your meeting more productive. Specific attribution is made to
LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezo, and materials published in Fortune
Magazine.
12. Planning &
Execution
An Approach To Increasing the Value of
Your Meetings
In addition to the best practices for meetings, I'd like share a relatively
new practice with great effect in increasing the value of meetings.
LinkedIn Corporation has essentially eliminated the meeting presentation. In lieu
of that, materials that would typically have been presented during a meeting are
sent out to participants at least 24 hours in advance to allow people to familiarize
themselves with the content.
Managers at LinkedIn understand that just because the material has been sent
doesn't mean it will be read. They have taken a page from the Amazon CEO Jeff
Bezo's book… “His fondness for the written word drives one of his primary, and
perhaps peculiar, tools for managing his company: Meetings of his senior
executive "S-team" begin with participants quietly absorbing the written word.”
Specifically, before any discussion begins, members of the team -- including
Bezos -- consume six-page printed memos in total silence for as long as 30
minutes. They scribble notes in the margins while the authors of the memos wait
for Bezos and his minions to finish reading.
13. Planning &
ExecutionThis Sounds Odd
If the idea of kicking off a meeting with minutes of silence strikes you as odd,
you're not alone. The first time you read about this practice it may immediately
conjured up images of the last practices you would equate with meeting
productivity. However, after the first few times you try it, not only won't it be
awkward -- it will be welcome. This is particularly true when meetings end
early with participants agreeing it was time well spent.
Executives at Amazon call their meeting documents "narratives," and they
realize that for the uninitiated -- and fans of the PowerPoint presentation -- the
process feels very odd. "For new employees, it's a strange initial experience," he
tells Fortune magazine. "They're just not accustomed to sitting silently in a
room and doing “study hall” with a bunch of executives." Bezos says the act of
communal reading guarantees the group's undivided attention. Writing a memo
is an even more important skill to master. "Full sentences are harder to write,"
he says: “They have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences.” The six-page,
narratively structured memo without clear thinking is rare – The presentation
intended to consume 60 minutes without clear thinking is not uncommon.
14. Planning &
ExecutionAdoption
LinkedIn executives adopted this practice beginning each meeting by providing
attendees roughly 5-10 minutes to read through the document or prepared deck. If
people have already read it, this gives them an opportunity to refresh their memory,
identify areas they'd like to go deeper on, or even clarify the position that they
intend to put forward.
Once folks have completed the reading, it's time to open it up for discussion. There
is no presentation. It's important to stay vigilant on this point as most people who
prepared the materials will reflexively begin presenting. If you are concerned about
appearing insensitive by not allowing individuals who worked hard on the materials
to have their moment, constructively remind the group this is a new practice that is
being applied to the entire company and will benefit all meeting attendees, including
the artist formerly known as The Presenter.
If the material has been well thought out and simply and intuitively articulated,
chances are the need for clarifying questions will be kept to a minimum. In these
situations, you may be pleasantly surprised to see a meeting that had been scheduled
for an hour is actually over after 20-30 minutes.
15. Planning &
ExecutionWhy This Works
Of course, even the best prepared material may reach a highly
contentious recommendation or conclusion. However, the good
news is meeting attendees will now be able to dig into the subject
matter and share their real opinions rather than waste time
listening to an endless re-hashing of points they're already familiar
with, or worse still find irrelevant or redundant.
With the presentation eliminated, the meeting can now be
exclusively focused on generating a valuable discourse: Providing
shared context, diving deeper on particularly cogent data and
insights, and perhaps most importantly, having a meaningful
debate.