More effective meetings 9 inputs

Input # 1
Decide if the meeting is needed

Possibility A: Manager has taken a decision A meeting is not needed The manager simply informs about his/her decision

Possibility B: Manager has not taken a decision

A meeting is needed

Input # 2
Find a facilitator to manage the meeting

A manager

An employee

Facilitator possibilities

An external facilitator

Examples of facilitator skills

Initiating. In control, organized. Good at using communication technology. Good at listening. Good at asking questions, involving people. Good at summarizing.

Sources http://www.scribd.com/doc/7102259/How-to-Be-Good-Facilitator http://www.scribd.com/doc/22065544/7-Skill-4-Effective-Facilitation http://www.scribd.com/doc/16915436/08-Facilitation-Skills-SelfAssessment Tan, BCY; Wei, Kwok-Kee; J-E Lee-Partridge: Effects of facilitation and leadership on meeting outcomes in a group support system environment. European Journal of Information Systems (1999) 8, 233246

2 reasons why an external facilitator is the better choice

Reason # 1: An external facilitator is neutral He/she is not part of the problem. Reason # 2: An external facilitator is impartial He/she is not perceived as one who will be in favor of one/some of the participants.

Input # 3
The facilitator prepares the meeting

Task A
Define the reason for / purpose of the meeting

Ask yourself why you the session is needed. Defining the reason / purpose of the meeting may be the key to solving the problem.

Source: http://www.iaf-methods.org/node/5106

Task B
Make the agenda

Ask possible meeting participants and other people with knowledge about the topic about their ideas / inputs / Place the most important points at the start of the agenda.

If people have a chance to look over the agenda [prior to the meeting], they will be more likely to have something to contribute to the discussion.

Source Simple Facilitation Ideas to Keep Peace at Partner Meetings. Law Office Management & Administration Report; Apr 2004

Task C
Find meeting participants

Find people with the right knowledge. Keep in mind that the more people you invite, the more difficult it will be to make decisions.

Task D
Define meeting time

Set start time at an untraditional time, for example 7.47 AM. Keep meeting as short as possible and duration untraditional, for example 23 minutes.

Task E
Define meeting place

Examples

Task F
Find meeting material on the Internet

Task G
Define tasks to be delegated

Examples

Each person is responsible for preparing for the meeting. 1 person is responsible for summarizing the decisions taken at the meeting.

Task H
Find meeting time

Example of tool to use

Include information from A to G

Task I
Call the meeting

Example of tool to use

Include information from A to H when calling the meeting.

Input # 4
The facilitator starts the meeting

Input A
Start the meeting on time

The people who are late will pay for coffee

Source http://www.pixelio.de/details.php?image_id=277876&mode=search

Input B
State the purpose of the meeting and present the meeting agenda

Input C
Ask each meeting participant to state, during minute, the result he/she wishes meeting participants to achieve during the meeting

Input D
Define values for the meeting

Ask each participant to choose 1 value for how participants should communicate with each other. Make the one value who is mentioned most frequently the key value of the meeting.

Attentively Confidently Patiently Understandably Clearly Concretely Openly Directly vs. indirectly

Actively vs. passively Dominantly, aggressively vs. calmly Loudly vs. quietly Strongly vs. weakly

Communication values

Slowly vs. quickly, energetically

Input E
Make a vote regarding mobile devices

Make a vote on whether the meeting should take place with mobile devices turned on or off. The majority decides.

Input # 5
Listen to peoples ideas, experiences, and opinions

Tip A
Ask open questions

What..? How..?

Tip B
Ask a person directly

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7189444/Facilitation

John, I know you have valuable knowledge about this topic: What success experiences have you had? What do you suggest that.? How would you....?

Tip C
Make a short 2-person dialogue

Ask meeting participants to discuss a topic for 2-3 minutes in groups of 2 people.

Tip D
Make a round robin

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7189444/Facilitation

Lets take a short round to get a comment from each of you on this. James, would you start please.

Input # 6
Keep the meeting on track

A. Listen to each other

Bryan and Jane: Youre not listening to each other. Please speak only one person at a time.

B. Move on after decision has been taken

Kate and Spencer: Youre discussing subject X now. But we already made a decision about this. Please stop your discussion, and lets move on now.

C. Discuss only 1 subject as a time

Susan and Curt: Youre discussing both subject X and Y now. Lets go back - right now - to discussing only topic X, please.

D: Summarize

The discussion is moving out of track. Let me shortly summarize what we have agreed on.

Make meeting outcomes visible to the group, and keep the group moving towards meeting outcomes.

Source Tan, BCY; Wei, Kwok-Kee; J-E Lee-Partridge: Effects of facilitation and leadership on meeting outcomes in a group support system environment. European Journal of Information Systems (1999) 8, 233246

E. Reflect on what were doing for 1 minute

Individually, please reflect on what were doing, to what extent we are on the right track? Please think about what the best solution for the company is.

Input # 7
The facilitator manages decision making

Possibility A
The facilitator concludes, and everyone silently agrees

Shall we say that this.. is the conclusion of this issue?

Possibility B
The facilitator makes a vote

It seems difficult to agree on this. Lets make a vote? How many of you vote for solution # 1?

Possibility C
The facilitator asks 2-3 people to make a decision

Josephine and Burt, you showed that you have great knowledge and ideas about this. Can I ask you to communicate with each other right now and make a decision on what we will do. Please communicate your decision to the rest of us in 5 minutes.

Possibility D
The facilitator asks a manager to decide

George, Id like to hear your opinion as manager: What do you think we should do? Please be concrete.

Input # 8
The facilitator manages task planning

Plan of tasks to do Tasks Responsible person Deadline

Agile methods encourage team members to voluntarily sign up for tasks and share ownership instead of assigning task from the top down.

Source Xu, Peng: Coordination In Large Agile Projects. The Review of Business Information Systems; Fourth Quarter 2009.

Tasks are chosen, not assigned The Web is an opt-in economy. Whether contributing to a blog, working on an open source project, or sharing advice in a forum, people choose to work on the things that interest them. Everyone is an independent contractor, and everyone scratches their own itch.

Source Hamel, Gary: The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500 http://blogs.wsj.com/management/2009/03/24/the-facebook-generation-vs-the-fortune-500/

Recognizing individual team members as intelligent, skilled professional agents, and placing a value on their autonomy is fundamental to all other practices.

Source http://www.propernet.com/extranet/mcgill/CLASS%203/3.1%20-%20AgileProjectManagement.pdf

Input # 9
The facilitator finishes the meeting

Initiative A
The facilitator repeats assignments that people have chosen to do

Initiative B
The facilitator finishes the (internet) meeting on time and in a good spirit