Crazy metaphors: braids and encounters

Website design By BotEap.comMeetings provide an opportunity for creativity and productivity to flourish. Managed well, they can speed up the problem-solving process and develop harmony within the group at the same time. Poorly managed, they can spell the end of crowdsourcing.

Website design By BotEap.comThere are three elements that constitute effective meetings. When intertwined, they represent a powerful force for productivity. With just one or two of the elements, you are metaphorically looking at a single strand of hair, rather than the strength that becomes apparent when the strands are intertwined.

Website design By BotEap.comOnce you run your meeting (or insist that it happen) with these elements at work, you can debunk the myths that surround meetings—myths of wasted time and energy. These elements make meeting leaders and participants common meeting facilitators and problem solvers. The three critical elements for effective meetings are having an agenda, appointing a topic monitor, and delegating a time monitor.

Website design By BotEap.com1. Prepare an agenda and share it with team members at least two days before the meeting. Not only does this set a tone of efficiency, but it also allows attendees to think about topics ahead of time and gather any materials that may be needed for the meeting. The agenda should have time assignments written in parentheses next to each item. Also, the purpose of the meeting should be listed at the top of the agenda.

Website design By BotEap.com2. Once the meeting is underway, begin with a restatement of purpose and provide further clarification if needed.

Website design By BotEap.com3. Immediately add a time monitor. This person has full authority to enforce the time assignments listed on the agenda. As unobtrusively as possible, he or she should inform the group when the allotted time for a particular topic is almost up.

Website design By BotEap.com4. Next, add a theme monitor. This individual also has full authority, in this case, to warn the group that they are getting off the point.

Website design By BotEap.com5. We recommend having a scribe as well.

Website design By BotEap.com6. Strive for a balance between maintenance tasks and behaviors, both for the group as a whole and for individual members. Task behaviors are those related to getting the job done. Asking for clarification, for example, is a task-related action. So is volunteering to do a certain task, reminding others of the ground rules, listing brainstorming items, etc. Maintenance behaviors relevant to the social glue that holds the group together. They could include icebreaker activities at the first team meeting. Other examples of maintenance behaviors could be congratulating the team, stepping in when a conflict arises, asking for a break, and so on.

Website design By BotEap.com7. Ground rules can be established by an experienced team leader or can be created with the full participation of the team. Either way, those rules should be published.

Website design By BotEap.com8. Guarantee the equitable contribution of the members. To achieve this equality, you may need to participate in an activity such as the Delphi response, which invites everyone to contribute ideas anonymously. You can also call out quieter members or make sure a talkative member doesn’t dominate discussions.

Website design By BotEap.com9. Take full advantage of the many tools available to teams for problem solving, idea generation, and decision making. These include Crawford’s technique, benchmarking, structured brainstorming, storyboarding, force field analysis, fishbone diagram, object autonomy, lasso method, problems and ADD, to name just a few.

Website design By BotEap.com10. Task and talent alignment prevents members from taking on tasks in an effort to “play as a team” and instead encourages them to take on tasks because they are good at them. Will Schutz’s questions, while initially sarcastic, are actually good indices of who should be asked to do what. Those questions are: “Who knows?” Who cares?” Plus, you can ask team members “inflammatory” questions to find out what they like to do and what they’d rather avoid. Finally, you can put Yale’s research to good use: Make sure each team has Diversity, of course, can be defined in various ways, but Sternberg’s work has found that the most effective teams have at least one person who is logical, one who is creative, and someone who is knowledgeable about the subject. topic in question.

Website design By BotEap.com11. Use the parking method to capture relevant but unscheduled issues. To achieve the purpose of the meeting, the agenda takes precedence. But, as every team leader knows, sometimes issues arise that aren’t on the agenda but deserve further exploration. These topics should be listed on a sheet of flipchart paper (ideally posted at the beginning of each meeting) so that they can be covered later.

Website design By BotEap.com12. Before the meeting ends, remind members of the commitments: who has agreed to do what and when? If possible, write down tasks so you can refer to them at the end, thus eliminating the possibility of disagreement or misunderstanding. Writing them down also means they can be used both in minutes (if sent) and at the next meeting.

Website design By BotEap.com13. Close the meeting by thanking team members for their contributions, referring to the purpose and achievement, and looking ahead through the next steps the team as a whole will take.

Website design By BotEap.com14. The intent of the continuous improvement team realizes that it is difficult to improve if there has not been an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the meeting process. This evaluation can be handled in several ways. On occasion, a stranger may be invited to observe a meeting in progress. The meeting leader can also informally ask members for their thoughts on the meeting before it ends. He or she can also determine if the purpose of the meeting was achieved. And he or she can prepare a simple evaluation form and distribute it at the end of the meeting.

Website design By BotEap.comFinally, too many of us know firsthand the wisdom of this anonymous observation: “If an hour has been spent amending a sentence, someone will move to delete the paragraph.” To ensure meeting productivity and time wasted with edits and deletions, follow the 14 tips above.