Running Effective Meetings - Augusta University · 2019-12-06 · Running Effective Meetings Thad...
Transcript of Running Effective Meetings - Augusta University · 2019-12-06 · Running Effective Meetings Thad...
Running Effective
Meetings
Thad Wilkins, MD, MBA
Professor
Department of Family Medicine
Medical College of Georgia
3 things to do while waiting for meeting to start:1. Sign into Agenda on google doc and figure out howto take picture and upload to shared agenda2. Review your homework exercise and be preparedfor group discussion3. Add any thoughts or questions to parking lot (last page of shared agenda)
Why we love to hate meetings
• Clogs up our days
• Hard to get “real” work done
• Feels like a waste of time
HBR guide to making every meeting matter. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press; 2016. pages cm p.
Objectives Participants will be able to identify key elements in:
• Preparing for and leading a meeting
• Leading an audio- or video
conference vs. an in-person
meeting
• Following up after a meeting
Agenda
• Opening Exercise – 10 min - Thad
– Split into 3 groups (include virtual
attendees)
– Brainstorm characteristics of
effective and ineffective meetings
• Report out to group – 10 min -
Group
• Prepare for meeting – 15 min -
Thad
• Lead meeting – 15 min - Thad
• Lead a virtual meeting – 15 min –
Thad
• After the meeting – 15 min - Thad
• Q&A – 10 min - Group
Do you really need a meeting?
• Don’t have time to prepare for the meeting
• Another method of communicating—email, phone,
text message—would work as well
• The subject isn’t worth everyone’s time
• Your group members are upset over a conflict
• The subject is a personnel issue that’s better handled
one-on-one
• You need to solicit a number of individuals’ opinions
Preparing for Your Meeting –
Why are you meeting?
• Don’t gloss over accurately identifying the purpose of the meeting
• What does the meeting need to accomplish
– Brainstorm? What?
– To Inform your team
– To fix a problem
– To clarify roles and responsibilities
– Rally the troops
– Make a decision
How to Design an Agenda for an Effective
Meeting
• Seek input from team members
• Select topics that affect the entire team
• Estimate a realistic amount of time for each topic
• Specify how members should prepare for the meeting
• Identify who is responsible for leading each topic
• End the meeting with a plus/delta
HBR guide to making every meeting matter. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press; 2016. pages cm p.
Plus Delta
• A Plus Delta evaluation is a formative evaluation
process that provides feedback on an experience or
event and collects ideas for future improvements. It is
framed in “improvement” language rather than language
that might be experienced negatively. The plus identifies
what went well.
HBR guide to making every meeting matter. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press; 2016. pages cm p.
HBR guide to making every meeting matter. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press; 2016. pages cm p.
How many people is too many for
my meeting?
Plan your attendee list
• The key decision makers for the issues involved
• The ones with information and knowledge about the topics under discussion
• People who have a commitment to or a stake in the issues
• Those who need to know about the information you have to report in order to do their jobs
• Anyone who will be required to implement any decisions made
HBR guide to making every meeting matter. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press; 2016. pages cm p.
8-18-1800 rule
• If you have to solve a problem or make a decision, invite no more than 8
people.
• If you want to brainstorm, then you can go as high as 18 people.
• If the purpose of the meeting is for you to provide updates, invite however
many people need to receive the updates.
• If the purpose of the meeting is for you to rally the troops, go for 1,800 — or
more!
Running meetings : lead with confidence, move your project forward, manage conflicts. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press; 2014. viii, 116 pages p.
Assign roles
• Leader: clarify the gathering’s purpose, objectives, constraints, and scope of authority; take responsibility for follow-up
• Facilitator: guides the group through the discussion, problem-solving, and decision-making phases of the meeting. May be responsible for pre-and post-meeting logistics
• Scribe: captures the key points, ideas, and decisions that result from the meeting; may also draft the post-meeting notes
Assign roles
• Contributor: participates actively by offering ideas and helping to keep the discussion on track
• Expert: shares knowledge on particular issues as requested. One advantage: You can ask an expert to attend just part of the meeting, keeping his or her contribution focused
• Timekeeper: tracks time spent on each agenda item and moves the discussion along to the next agenda item
Scheduling a Meeting the Right Way
• The first and most important question to ask is this — whose priorities come first?
• What Works for You?
• Here Are Some Times That Work
– Don’t ask all attendees blindly for times that work — it’s too ambiguous and open-ended
– Don’t commit to a date or time without making sure you have sign-off from the key players
– Keep a paper trail
Finish your preparations
• Prepare meeting
logistics
– Laptop or other
equipment; key to
the room
• Distribute reading
materials
– Usually a day or two
before the meeting
Meeting Preparation Checklist
• Have you . . .
• Identified the specific purpose of the meeting?
• Made sure you need a meeting at all?
• Developed a preliminary agenda?
• Selected the right participants and assigned roles?
• Decided where and when to hold the meeting and
confirmed availability of the space?
Meeting Preparation Checklist
• Sent the invitation, notifying participants when and
where the meeting will be held?
• Sent the preliminary agenda to key participants
and other key stakeholders?
• Sent any reports or items needing advance
preparation to participants?
• Followed up with invitees in person, if appropriate?
Meeting Preparation Checklist
• Identified, if appropriate, the decision-making process that will be used in the meeting?
• Identified, arranged for, and tested any required equipment?
• Finalized the agenda and distributed it to all participants?
• Verified that all key participants will attend and know their roles?
• Prepared yourself?
Leading your meeting
• Starting the meeting - Begin the meeting on time
• Introduce the meeting
• Establish round rules
– Beginning and ending on time
– Ask for everyone’s participation and openness to
new ideas
– Agree to listen to each other and limit interruptions
– Clarify how decisions will be made
– Explain your policy on multitasking and device use
Executing the agenda
• Keep the meeting moving
– Keep an eye on the agenda and the time—or assign a time-keeper
– As you go, summarize and review the progress of the meeting frequently and explicitly
– Record the ideas expressed about the most important topics on a flip chart or other tool
– Highlight the transitions from one agenda item or objective to the next
– Pause periodically to tell the group where you are in the meeting’s agenda
Using a Whiteboard
• Flip charts or whiteboards
• Newer technologies – virtual attendees
– Shared Evernote notebook or Google
Doc
– Webex whiteboard
• These tools can demonstrate to group
members in real time that their input is
captured and valued
Using a Whiteboard
• Keep the comments you’ve recorded visible for the entire meeting, and share them afterward
• Use your smartphone to take a picture of the whiteboard or flip chart and send to the group
• As you go, keep the whiteboard neat
• During a brainstorming session, capture every contribution first
– Then number, star, circle, or otherwise mark up the pages as the group evaluates, prioritizes, and makes decisions about the ideas generated
• Keep a visible list—a “parking lot”—of issues to be dealt with after the meeting
Make sure all points of view are heard
• Encourage feedback regularly, at each natural break in the session, or at least after each agenda item
• Ask a general question, such as “Have we forgotten anything?”
• Don’t allow louder, more vocal attendees to dominate
• Request feedback after the meeting
• Make sure your virtual participants are heard
Make sure all points of view are heard
• If your meeting has a dozen or more participants, break
the group down into pairs or trios, and have each small
group report back about a particular agenda item
• Ask someone to play devil’s advocate to bring different
points of view to the conversation
• Give the group a little time to think things over
• Don’t be in a rush to vote or reach a decision after you’ve
discussed an issue
Managing multitaskers
• Discourage your attendees from engaging in other
communications during the meeting
– No checking emails, surfing the web, checking sports
scores, or sending or replying to texts
• A participant who isn’t paying attention may miss an
important moment in the meeting
• Your ability to finish the meeting on time depends on
attendees giving you their full attention
End the meeting with a plus/delta
• Was the agenda distributed in time for everyone to prepare?
• How well did team members prepare for the meeting?
• How well did we estimate the time needed for each agenda item?
• How well did we allocate our time for decision making and discussion?
• How well did everyone stay on-topic? How well did team members speak
up when they thought someone was off-topic?
• How effective was the process for each agenda item?
HBR guide to making every meeting matter. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press; 2016. pages cm p.
Closing the meeting
• Closing needs to set up what happens after the meeting
• Set the right tone—so participants are motivated to follow through on their action items and feel excited about the project as a whole
• Begin by summarizing the session
• Reiterate key points, decisions, and next steps, along with who is responsible for what
• Consult whoever took notes to make sure you haven’t missed anything
• Leave on positive note - “Great discussion today. Thanks so much. We got a lot done!”
Lead a Virtual Meeting
• Make sure virtual participants are heard
– Initiate some casual chit-chat with the group,
particularly the remote participants, e.g. weather,
sports
• Provide vocal cues for virtual attendees that they’d get
visually if they were present
• Make a point of asking the virtual attendees for feedback
at crucial moments to make sure they know it’s a good
time to speak
Why consider a virtual meeting?
• Efficient use of time
• Can build a sense of teamwork and camaraderie for
colleagues who don’t see each other every day
• Technology can enhance collaboration
– create a virtual whiteboard
– vote anonymously
– run a chat room for side discussions
Tips for productive virtual meetings
• Use video
– Busts the half-attentive crowd
– Allows everyone to read each other’s reactions and moods
• Ban the “mute” function
– Mute may discourage spontaneous discussion
– May consider exception in noisy environments, e.g. airport
• Don’t have talkers and listeners
– May be more important in virtual meetings
– Don’t let those there in person do all of the talking
Tips for productive virtual meetings
• Assign tasks in advance if possible
– Whiteboard manager
– Scribe
– Timekeeper
• Make a partially virtual meeting entirely virtual
– Avoids offline conversations
– No one unduly benefits from side conversations
When virtual won’t cut it
• Not every topic is appropriate for a virtual meeting
– An event that may affect people’s jobs
– Informing staff of layoffs
• Brainstorming or blue-sky thinking is just better with
people in a room together
The Day After: Making Your Meeting
Stick
• Your job: convert the meeting’s conversation and
decisions into action afterward
• Create a meeting follow-up note: to reinforce to
participants what you accomplished, alert all
stakeholders to key decisions, and ensure that all have
heard the same message or information
• A succinct summary of key decisions and of who needs
to do what to put them into action
• If at all possible, the plan should fit on one page
A good follow-up memo: What?
• What specific decisions and outcomes resulted from the meeting, and what tasks need to be done as a result of the meeting?
– The definition of the problem
– The method of analysis
– The alternatives discussed
– The criteria for deciding
– The decision
– Tasks that need to be done
– The expected outcome
A good follow-up memo: Who?
• Who has responsibility for the
tasks that need to be done?
• Consider assigning tasks even if
those assignments weren’t
discussed during your time
together
A good follow-up memo: When?
• When must the tasks be completed?
• Include the date of the next meeting or follow-up
actions
• Mark those due dates on your calendar—and remind
individuals in advance of the deadline that you’re
expecting something from them
• Add a thank-you to the participants: They should
understand that you appreciate their hard work
How did you do? Was your meeting
effective?
• Judge by the results
– Did you accomplish your objective? Were the right people invited—and did they show up? Did most people participate?
• Seek out the critics
– Meet privately and informally after the meeting with those who seemed dissatisfied or who didn’t contribute as much as others
• What could you do better next time?
– Make notes about what you could do differently—and remember to refer to them before your next gathering
Conclusions
• Keep the meeting as small as possible
• Ban devices
• Keep it as short as possible — no longer than an hour
• Stand-up meetings are more productive
• Make sure everyone participates and cold-call those who don’t
• Never hold a meeting just to update people
• Always set an agenda out ahead of time – and be clear about the
purpose of the meeting
HBR guide to making every meeting matter. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press; 2016. pages cm p.
QUESTIONS?