How to facilitate a Working Group Meeting?
Team meetings focus on the operational work of the team. The purpose is primarily to ‘triage’ issues that have come up to remove obstacles so that the work can move forward. It is also a space to share information on projects that the whole team need to be aware of. The following process will help make the meeting more effective. Remember this is only one type of meeting, there are others! If you need a meeting for a specific issue then call the people together you need.
1. Check in
Facilitator opens the meeting. Briefly hear from everyone, how are you today? Name anything to help you be present for the meeting. One person speaks at a time, without discussion.
2. Information sharing - Action points
Review previous action points. Ideally ‘done’ or ‘not done’ is sufficient. No explanation of why is needed, if anything else is needed at this point then it’s very brief. Only the action holder speaks, no discussion. Note: if you have an issue with someone else’s action point you can raise it on the agenda as your tension.
3. Information sharing - Project updates
This is for project owners to provide project updates. This should only be updates on the key projects since the last meeting (‘no update’ is perfectly acceptable). It should be focused on what the whole team need to know and be brief. This is not to share what you’ve been doing in the last period. No discussion, except for clarifying questions to understand the project update. Again, if you have an issue with someone else’s project you can raise it on the agenda.
5. Today’s agenda (dynamic)
This is the main part of the meeting, where participants ‘triage’ their issues. While some items may be put on the agenda in advance others are added in the meeting. Remember the focus is on removing obstacles so that the work can move forward. It’s not efficient, or effective, in a meeting with all team members to try to analyse or solve your issue - instead we focus on helping you get the next action clear to move forward. We can prioritise the agenda in the meeting.
For each agenda item the Facilitator will ask ‘what do you need?’ There are a few obvious examples: to share information, to request advice/help/feedback (on something my mandate is responsible for), to make a request (on something their mandate is responsible for), to request a new project/action, to make a proposal (that requires a group decision).
Please note your name and priority on your item:
1. Mission critical: something really bad will happen if this isn’t processed today
2. There’s a good reason why this is urgent
3. Can be got to after mission critical & urgent stuff
4. Not time-sensitive at all, but still important
Also add which of the following would you like to do? eg 2A
A. Request someone to get something done
B. Ask for information or help with making a decision for one of your roles
C. Share information or give input into someone else’s decision
D. Change/add a mandate or another kind of expectation
6. Check out
How I am leaving the meeting and any reflections on the meeting process.
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