How to: Prepare and host meetings
Everything is a meeting nowadays, and since my mission is: No more ineffective meetings, I am providing you with some tips/pointers and some questions you can ask yourself in order to structure your meetings and to get the most out of them.
Join me on the mission: No more ineffective meetings!
Basic ‘rules’ for all meetings:
Goal:
To quote Simon Sinek here, Start with WHY, determine why you need to have this meeting. Ask yourself the questions: What is the outcome I want to achieve? When is this meeting successful?
Title:
Make sure that the title covers the kind of meeting you want to have. Not too long, not too short. Some examples: Story mapping subject X, Input hackathon, Epic X Slicing, Training subject X, Knowledge Sharing X, Demonstration of product X.
Time slot:
Think about the flow of the day, and pick a time slot which fits that flow; so usually right after stand-ups in the morning, before or after lunch. I would try to avoid the end of the day since then people tend to easily lose their focus.
Agenda:
Make sure that the agenda is clear for all of the invitees. Be specific about the goal you want to achieve and with what kind of structure or format you are going to achieve that goal. Add an overview of topics you are going to discuss and don’t forget to include breaks if meetings are longer than 45min-1hour. Be specific about the expected preparation and the time it would take the invitees, make sure to communicate that in a timely manner. Preparation might be reading slides (add these to the invite), think upfront about the input they need to bring or that people need to create an account for a certain tool.
Amount of invites:
Adjust the amount of invitees to the type of meeting you are planning, you can read some pointers per type of meeting below.
How to meet your goal:
Meetings are the most effective if the format you are going to use fits the intended goal you want to reach; use the image below to determine which section would help you the most:
Providing information to a group:
If you want to share information to a large audience, keep the following in mind;
- Target Audience
- Visual Guidance
- Follow-up
Target Audience:
Think about who you need to invite to the meeting and make sure that the message you are going to send fits that target audience.
Visual Guidance:
In order to see the audience I like to use the meeting tool on one screen, so I can see the reactions of the people and use a visual aid on the other screen. Overall rule is: Only use visuals which will support/enhance your message, otherwise they distract from the message so it’s best to remove it then.
Follow-up:
If you have provided a lot of information, make sure to follow your meeting up with sending the visual aid (people tend to remember a story if they revisit the visuals) and write a small recap of the meeting with some clear steps/action points.
Gather input and brainstorm:
Amount of people:
The more the merrier doesn’t apply for all meetings, bring the amount of people down to the people who will add the most value and/or include a ‘representative’ of a certain role.
In order to make sure everybody is able to participate and provide their input;
Try to incorporate the following techniques:
- Note
- Group
- Vote
- Breakout rooms
- Present to the group
- Clarifying questions
- Follow-up
Note:
Everybody is able to write down their ideas and point of view. Use a tool which fosters real-time collaboration and increases transparency and overview. Examples: Jamboard, Miro, google docs.
Group:
Some groups/themes will logically arise, if not double check by asking clarifying questions without going in depth.
Vote:
Let the group vote by giving 1 or more votes to express which items they think are most valuable / interesting / awesome (whatever you think is most necessary for the meeting you are having).
Breakout rooms:
If you think that ideas need additional exploration but the group is too big to do this all together, create breakout rooms and divide the topics over the group in order to do a more in-depth brainstorming (action items, dependencies, outstanding questions). Give the participants space on the Miro-board or any other tool to create stickies, paste pictures and to write down action items. Give the group a timebox in google meet so that when the timebox is finished everybody returns to the main call.
Present to the group:
Set a timebox per group to present their major ideas, short summary of the discussion and action points they have written down to inform the group and leave room for the rest of the group to ask clarifying questions.
Follow-up:
If you have provided a lot of information, make sure to follow your meeting up with sending the visual aid (people tend to remember a story if they revisit the visuals) and write a small recap of the meeting with some clear steps/action points.
Consent decision making in a nutshell:
You have probably been in one of those meetings where everybody tries to agree on a subject and a way forward however the process usually feels lengthy filled with frustrations and un-clarities.
Below some pointers on how to structure the next meeting when you want to make decisions in a group setting. The main difference between consensus vs. consent is that with consensus decision making everybody must AGREE while consent decision making focuses on that nobody is AGAINST the proposal.
- Present proposal
- Clarifying questions
- Quick reactions
- Consent
- Objections
Present proposal:
Share your proposal up front with the group, so that everybody has time to read through it. During the meeting read the proposal out loud again to the group, once everybody has had the time to read/listen to the proposal you are ready for the next step.
Clarifying questions:
Invite the group to ask questions about un-clarities in your proposal; for instance when you say ‘often’ what is your perception of often? The proposer provides an answer and alters the proposal when necessary. If the proposer doesn’t have an answer it can be mentioned that it’s unspecified for now.
Keep in mind: This is NOT the place to doubt or question the proposal.
Quick reactions:
Everybody gets the opportunity to express their opinion on the proposal, whether you like the proposal or where you might see problems arise. Refrain from discussion and let everybody express their opinion. The proposer has the opportunity to make amendments to the proposal. Note that amendments change the proposal. You can accept changes to the proposal but make sure everyone is aware of the change. Show the change visually or by re-reading the changed section. If you make too many changes in the quick reaction round you might have to start at the beginning of the consent process, since you basically have a new proposal.
Consent:
Look for objections to the proposal and ask every individual: Is it save enough to try?
If yes, great move to the next person, if no let the objector explain why they have an objection. First get everybody’s consent or objections before dealing with these objections.
If there are no objections at all → Congratulations you have made a consent decision with the group. Make sure you write it down somewhere which is available for everybody.
Objections:
If one individual objects to the proposal you take the following steps:
Try to seek understanding without making assumptions, and if you do feel to make assumptions → check them.
The goal is to seek if the objection comes from a real objection or from personal preferences. How do you know which one it is; by asking questions.
How is your work or our organisation being affected by this proposal? Do you see this as a possible or eminent treat? Can you quantify your objection? What would you propose to alter in order to resolve your objection?
Group evaluation:
At the end of a project or a specific event it’s beneficial to evaluate and inspect the situation in order to gather learnings so that next time we find ourselves in a similar situation we can overcome the challenges.
Scope:
Be clear on what project or event you are going to evaluate in order to keep the conversation to the core.
Invitees:
Invite the people who have been involved in the situation to gather their perspective but also consider inviting people who will be impacted with the outcome of the discussion.
Creating an open environment:
Keep in mind that you are asking people to be (self)critical and that it is important that people are open and honest without judgement or assumptions. Be aware that you when opening the meeting you are setting the stage for constructive criticism, discussion and evaluation.
Taking action:
In order to not fall in the trap of just an hour of people complaining and throwing mud back and forth; it’s important to guide the group towards reaching learnings and creating improvement points that people can take them selves or need to escalate to other people. You could do so with clarifying questions but also the listen, summarise and follow-up questions technique in order to come to the core of the situation.
Follow-up:
It might be valuable to write a summary of the major discussion points with the decisions or action items the group agreed upon as reference for follow-up and actually achieving the action items.
Hopefully these pointers will support you in the mission:
No more ineffective meetings!
