Design a Meeting

The skills to designing a good meeting comes in handy, but designing a great meeting comes close to perfection. A good leader should know how to create a meeting that is easy to understand and runs smoothly due to the clarity of your overall agenda.

Designing A Great Meeting

1. Clarity on meeting purpose, outcomes and agenda:

The opening should include a review of the purpose and desired outcomes of the meeting. Working from a flipchart or handout so that everyone can see the information at the same time, review these pieces, checking for understanding and agreement. If your preparation has been thorough, there are not likely to be any big surprises or deviations from what you prepared.

2. Establish ground rules:

Establish BEHAVIORAL and PROCEDURAL ground rules for the meeting.

Examples of Behavioral ground rules are:

1. We will treat each other with respect.

2. Share the floor.

3. No interruptions

Examples of Procedural ground rules are:

1. Only one person speaks at a time.

2. Meeting will begin on time and end on time.

3. Be constructive

HINTS for establishing ground rules:

1. Ask for suggestions for ground rules. All ideas are welcome

2. Define the suggestion in terms of behavior. Asking “what would it look like if…”

3. Check with yourself to see if the ground rules really serve the group. If not, explain your concern to the group and offer an alternative.

4. Check for consensus on the ground rule.

5. Write the ground rules on a note pad and show the group again at the next meeting on the Agenda.

3. Establish decision-making methods:

There are many ways that groups can make decisions and it is important that the group be clear in advance which method or combination of methods it wants to use. Some decision-making techniques are:

1. Majority voting

2. Voting with two-thirds, three-quarters or higher percentage required.

3. Deferring to a subgroup

4. Basket:

Have a basket where the group can feel free to put in their ideas about the meeting or upcoming events that relate to the meeting.

5. Setting the tone:

The facilitator sets the tone for the meeting from the moment participants walk through the door. By greeting people cheerfully and introducing yourself, welcoming them, indicating that you are glad they came, and thanking them for their participation, you are setting a positive, constructive tone from the start.

Introduction: The nature of the group, how long it has been working together, and the nature of the problem it is working on will determine what kind of introductions and warm-up exercise are most appropriate.

Team Building: If there is a low level of trust or little common ground among the participants, there may be a need to plan some team building or trust building work into the opening of the meeting before the group gets to the more difficult work or decision making.

6. Body of the meeting:

The central part of the meeting is the task that needs to accomplish by the group. There may be more than one task, depending on the desired outcomes for the meeting. To build the agenda for the body of the meeting, work directly from your desired outcomes and decide for each one what process steps to be taken to arrive at the desired outcome.

7. Closure:

Just as a meeting needs clarity in the beginning, it needs clarity at the end. Participants need to leave the meeting with a clear, common understanding of what has been accomplished, what has been agreed upon, what needs to happen next and who is assigned to do what and when. It is important to evaluate the meeting, so that the next meeting can be improved and the group can congratulate itself on what went well. Also, at the conclusion the meeting needs to have a personal closure.

GROUP AGREEMENTS: Reiterate and even make a separate list of things, which the group has agreed upon in the course of the meeting. Agreed that:

The problem is…

The causes are…

The most reasonable solutions are…

MEETING EVALUATION: At the very end of the meeting take about 5 minutes to discuss what went well and what can be improved upon for the next meeting.

PERSONAL CLOSURE: When a group has completed a challenging piece of work or it is disbanding, participants will have formed a special bond or learned to work with each other in a new way and the participants need a way to have a personal closure, acknowledging and thanking one another or saying good bye.

AGENDA PLANNING: The facilitator's personal agenda will be highly detailed, providing all the notes you will need for yourself. The agenda for the group will be less detailed, leaving out much of the “how,” but should be reviewed at the beginning of the meeting with the group