1. Guide to Conducting a Meeting
Forest City Young Professionals Meeting – Dec ‘14 John Roisen

2. Effects of Unproductive Meetings
Meetings are longer, less efficient, generate fewer results
More meetings are needed to accomplish objectives
People have less time to get their work done
Can create frustration
Information generated in unproductive meetings usually is not managed properly
Inefficient meetings cost the organization money in otherwise productive work time

3. In general, call a meeting when you:
Need the entire group to provide information or advice.
Want the team to participate in making a decision or solving a problem.
Want to share information, a success, or a concern with the whole group, or make everyone aware of a particular situation.
Are dealing with a problem that needs input from members of different groups with distinctive perspectives or agendas.
Find that responsibility for a problem, issue, or area needs to be clarified.
Find out the group feels a strong need to meet.

4. Lifecycle of a Meeting:
Issue/ Purpose
Core Meeting Process
Setting Up
Conducting
Following Thru
Results

5. Setting Up: What it is: Why it is Important:
Setting up involves thinking through and making conscious choices about the meeting purpose, participants, decision making methods, desired out comes and agenda to accomplish those outcomes.
Why it is Important:
Being Prepared shows respect for other people’s time.
Generally, there is a one-to-one relationship between the meeting time and preparation time: One hour meeting = One hour preparation time
The more preparation, the more productive the meeting
If the Desired Outcome of the meeting is not clear, it probably will not be achieved
Bringing together the right people

6. Setting Up: Key Elements
Purpose of the Meeting
Setting Up: Key Elements
Stakeholder Assessment
Desired Outcomes
Topics
Attendees
Roles
Decision Making Method
Detailed Agenda

7. Setting Up: Purpose of the Meeting
The Meeting Purpose answers the question “Why meet?”
Effective purpose statements tell the participants what they will be doing at the meeting in broad terms
There are many reasons why people meet:
Share Information
Make Decisions
Plan
Solve Problems
Track Progress
Report/Inform
Evaluate Performance
Learn/Train
Analyze Issues
Team Building
Celebrate
Mediate

8. Setting Up: Purpose of the Meeting
Why is it Important?
Once you’ve determined the purpose of the meeting, you can begin to design a meeting process that can directly address the participant’s needs.
Examples: The purpose of the meeting is to:
Celebrate the Success of Team X
Inform organization of Operating Goals
Update team members of progress of Project Y
Schedule next week’s production
Plan for the transition to product Z

9. Setting Up: Stakeholder Analysis
A Stakeholder Analysis sets the foundation for building agreement by indentifying people’s underlying interests.
Who are Stakeholders: Any person or group of people who is:
Responsible for the final decision
In position to implement or support the decision or can prevent it from being implemented
Likely to be affected by the decision
Why is it important:
All efforts to make change, improvements or implement new ideas/process involve individual values, interests, needs and wants. Stakeholder Analysis builds a clear understanding of the “Big” picture and sets the foundation for dealing with people’s concerns and serving their needs.

10. Setting Up: How to Conduct a Stakeholders Analysis
List the Final Decision Makers
List people who will be affected by the outcome
List people who have the power to assist or block the implementation of the decision
For each person or group, identify what the success or the “win” might be
Select attendees for the meeting who can represent all Stakeholders’ point of view
You now have your list of Attendees!

11. Setting Up: Desired Outcomes
There are two kinds of Desired Outcomes:
Examples:
An Agreement on which Supplier to work with
A decision and action plan on how to achieve greater output
A list of projects to add to the Hopper
Products
Knowledge
Lists
Plans
Decisions
Agreements
Awareness of…so that…
Understanding of…so that…

12. Meeting Roles Used For Simple Problem Solving
Seeking & Sharing Information
Complex Problem Solving
Generation of a lot of information
Meeting in which leader is not highly vested in specific outcome
High Conflict Situations
Larger Groups
Meeting in which leader has a vested interest in the outcome
Meeting Leader
Participant
Meeting Leader
Participants
Recorder
Facilitator
Meeting Leader
Participants
Recorder

13. Setting Up: Decision Making Method:
What it is:
A Decision Making Method describes who will be making the decision and how others will be involved.
Why it is Important:
Enables decision makers to set clear boundaries for the involvement of others
Provides clear guidelines on whether and/or how to participate
Lets people know what to expect and what is expected of them
Helps build support for the final decision

14. Setting Up: Decision Making Method
Level of Involvement
Delegate with Contstraints
Consensus
Gather input from Group & Decide
Gather input from Individuals & Decide
Decide & Announce
Level of Ownership

15. Setting Up: Designing an Agenda
Review the purpose & desired outcome statement
Select the order of Topics
Select the appropriate process which will enable the meeting participants to achieve their desired outcomes
List the time required/allotted for each topic area
Identify Who is primarily responsible for leading each topic/segment of the agenda

16. Setting Up: Agenda: Example

17. Conducting: Setting Meeting Ground Rules
Commitment to begin and end on time.
Agreement about who may contribute to the agenda.
Agreement about how decisions will be made.
Time limit on solving each problem or making each decision. Clarification about constraints that exist for any issue
Identification of the final decision-maker for each item.
Asking for everyone’s participation and openness to new ideas.
Agreement on how to handle conflicts.
Agreement on how to follow up.
Allow time for personal introductions if necessary
Get approval from the group before going beyond the time allotted to a particular topic.
Follow the agenda
Ensure participation
Be an active listener

18. Conducting: Facilitative Behaviors
Facilitative Behaviors are actions anyone can to take to make meeting run smoothly
Preventions are those behaviors done before or during the meeting to prevent the meeting from getting off track with respect to content or process
Interventions are behaviors done during the meeting to help people get back on track with respect to content or process

19. Conducting: Preventions
Get agreement on the desired outcomes, agenda, roles, decision-making methods and ground rules: Check for agreement!
Make a suggestion on a way for the group to proceed:
“ I think we may be jumping around too much. I’d like to suggest we list the problem first and then go to the solutions”
“I’d like to suggest that we looking at the criteria before trying to evaluate the options”
Educate the Group:
“There is no one right way to solve a problem. Why don’t we create a list and clarify the issues we are dealing with?”

20. Conducting: Interventions
Boomerang: Returning the question to the person who asked it or the to group so that the leader or facilitator does not take all the responsibility for answering the question or resolving the problem:
“ Joan, you wanted to know why we are delaying the implementation. Can anyone describe the rationale for that decision to Joan?”
Maintain/Regain Focus: Making sure everyone is working on the same content, using the same process, at the same time.
“ Just a moment, one person at a time. Tom, you first, then Chuck.”
Steve, you are bringing up a new issue. I do not think we have finished with the first one yet. Could we stay on the first topic and get to your question next?”
Ask/Say What’s Going On: Naming something that is not working and get it out in the open so the group can deal with it.
“It is very quiet in here. What does the silence mean? What is going on?”
My sense is that not everyone agrees on the way we are going about making the decision. Does anyone else have that feeling?”

21. Conducting: Interventions
Enforce Process Agreements: Reminding the group of previous agreements or ground rules when the discussion starts getting off focus.
“We agreed to brainstorm and you are starting to evaluate the ideas. Would you mind holding onto that idea for now?
Accept/Legitimize/Deal with or Defer: A positive method for dealing with difficult people of situations that might get a meeting off track.
Accept an idea with out agreeing or disagreeing
Decide as a group if the idea/issue is appropriately dealt with now or deferred to another time and or place
“You are not convinced that we are getting anywhere? That is OK, you may be right. Would you be willing to wait 10 more minutes and see what happens?”

22. Following Through: Key Elements: Action/Communication Plans
Acknowledges and communicates to the stakeholders what happened during the meeting, sets in motion actions to assigned or implementation of decisions, and carries forward key learnings to future meetings:
What specific decisions and outcomes resulted from the meeting and what tasks need to be done as a result of the meeting?
Who has responsibility for those tasks? If meeting participants voluntarily commit to specific actions, it is more likely they will complete those tasks.
When must those tasks be completed? Keeping participants realistic about the schedules they commit to ensures that tasks actually get carried out.
Develop action and communication plan
Send follow-up memo
Meet with those participants who left the meeting dissatisfied or felt that they weren’t heard
Provide promised resources
Act on decisions made at meeting

23. Following Through: Action/Communication Planning
Action Planning: transforms agreements made in the meeting into clear next steps.
Use action planning to identify clearly what is expected
Assign responsibility to an individual, if a group action, designate a lead person
Make completion dates realistic
Communication Planning: ensures all stakeholders are aware of the decision or information and helps to ensure all have heard the same message or information.
Determine communication method, stakeholders, and timeframe
Creating an action and communication plan is often the most overlooked step and can be a source of complaints from meeting participants and other stakeholders who may not have been in attendance.
Meetings that end without an action and communication plan produce no action outside the meeting room.

24. Following Through: Key Elements, Meeting Minutes
Meeting Minutes: Reminds participants of their agreements, discussion and action items. Serves as a reference document for future meetings. Informs Stakeholders who were not at the meeting.
Things to consider:
Be Brief
Well Organized
Clear & Accurate
Report the appropriate amount of information
Distribute Timely…soon after the meeting

25. Following Through: Key Elements, Meeting Evaluation
Ongoing evaluations help groups take responsibility for improving the quality of their meetings. Used for:
Determining to what degree the meeting accomplished the Desired Outcomes
Achieving closure to the meeting
Acknowledge what contributed to the meeting’s success
Providing an opportunity for direct feed back to leader, members, facilitator and recorder.
HOW:
Make a list of What Worked and What Could Be Improved for future meetings
Negative Polling: instead of “Do you all agree in how we….” change it to “Does anyone have a problem with how we….”

26. Thank
you