Meeting Management Kellogg School 2 October 2002

Meeting Management Discussion: Your Experience My Beliefs Key Disciplines Wrap Up Agenda

Discussion: What is your experience in groups? What made your study groups work well last year? What things got in the way? What use did you make of electronic tools?

My Beliefs Biggest barrier to productive meetings is few people know the rules or have the skills. A handful of key disciplines make a world of difference in improving meeting productivity. Let me share those with you!

Key Disciplines Expectations Roles Tools Types of discussion Resources

Expectations Establish a common understanding right away as to what team members can expect from each other. Four generally applicable topics are: –Attendance –Promptness –Participation –Interruptions I still use these 4 to set expectations for my team today.

Roles Need to define a couple of key roles: –Chair: keep focus and progress, facilitate discussion, manage participation, gather evaluation and ideas for next agenda, publish agenda in advance, approve minutes. –Notetaker: record key topics & points raised, decisions made, action items, prepare & distribute minutes. Rotating the roles each meeting works well. –i.e., notetaker for this meeting is the chair for the next, when a new notetaker will start in. Defining a lead role is crucial for study groups—prior to Kellogg, we were all used to having a boss, but now everyone is a peer!

Tools These help to stay on task, and focus the purpose of the meeting. –Agenda: what do we intend to cover or decide, and how long will we spend on it. –Action items: who is to do what by when, outside of the group meeting. –Minutes: a quick summary of the action items, what was discussed and decided, and next step/meeting. Electronic tools can be helpful, but don’t overlook the value of study groups “hashing” ideas.

Discussion This is where the learning takes place! Three phases to discussions, each for a specific purpose— –Explore: brainstorm, idea generation –Define: clarify the ideas, winnow them down. Multivoting works really well here. –Decide: choose 1! Four basic ways to do it: Consensus Vote Subgroup decides One person decides My experience: skipping a phase in the discussion process does not save you time.

Resources Best reference on this topic is the Team Handbook, Joiner & Associates.

Wrap Up A few disciplines and rules can go a long way to make a team more productive. Take the time to set up the group for success right away! –Set expectations –Define roles –Consistently use a few simple tools –Work through the phases of discussion Getting proficient at team process is an excellent skill to take with you from Kellogg back into the work world!