Holding Meetings that Matter: Before, During and After the Meeting
If you, like me, strive to hold productive meetings, welcome, you’re in the right place! If you haven’t read Part 1 of this blog series on planning, I recommend you review it first for a primer on one of the most important steps to running effective meetings. For those continuing on this journey with me, in Part 2 we’ll dive into all the steps to take just before, during and after a meeting to make it as successful as possible.
What to Do Before, During and After the Meeting
Before the meeting, prep and share information with participants.
Send the agenda and any key background documents at least 2-3 business days ahead of the meeting, so participants know what to expect. A practice run at least one day ahead is mandatory for working through any kinks or tweaks to the plan ahead of time. Make sure to have adequate support staff – it’s simply not possible to run a deck, present, facilitate, take notes and monitor for raised hands or comments in the chat all by yourself. Don’t be afraid to bring in a meeting administrator or co-facilitator if needed and make sure everyone involved is included in the practice run.
During the meeting, leverage your careful planning while remaining flexible.
As discussed in Part 1, every meeting needs a goal or desired outcome so participants know what is trying to be achieved. For a more formal group convened over a series of meetings, a purpose statement that has been agreed on by the group is also helpful to steer the process. These are your guiding lights to keep things on track. Always stick to your purpose statement, meeting goal and allotted meeting time to honor what you and participants committed to from the onset. However, despite having a meticulously planned process and agenda, know that unexpected (and sometimes important) items may come up. Here’s a few ways to handle them:
- The Sandbox: A “sandbox” PowerPoint slide or whiteboard to write down important questions or comments is a great way to record these for later to keep the group focused while making people feel heard. If something seems significant enough, consult with the group and if there is agreement, you may take something out of the agenda to make room for the new item.
- Rules of Engagement: As mentioned in Part 1, at the onset of your meeting or engagement process the group should review and agree to a set of “rules of engagement” to guide group conduct and interactions during meetings. When working on complex issues with diverse group members, things occasionally get tense or people may make comments that are insensitive to certain members of the group. If this happens, acknowledge it and point back to the rules of engagement to reset expectations for respectful discussion.
- Discussion Questions: If challenges come up during a meeting, people may look to you as the facilitator as “the one with the answers.” Having a grasp of the subject matter is helpful, but your job is to engage the group to get them to answer the questions. A prepared list of open-ended discussion questions can help lead them to their own answer.
After the meeting, follow up on requests or action items.
If you, your team or your meeting sponsor agreed to do something during the meeting, make sure it happens! Send the recap notes with next steps, share the meeting deck and recording, and send answers to questions presenters did not have time to answer. This does several important things: provides a checkpoint for people who may have missed or misunderstood something during the meeting, demonstrates transparency with participants, and builds trust that discussions and input from meetings will be acted on.
Coming Up Next
In Part 1 and 2 of this series, we established the facilitation building blocks you need to begin planning and running meetings that matter for your organization or a client. In Part 3 – the final blog in these series – we’ll delve in something many struggle with: how to involve and compensate community in your engagement process.
