Productive Meeting Design Planning

February 17, 2015

Goal:

Construct a model for team meetings that work!

Objectives:

Compile list of what works well for us in meetings and what structures or conditions
make them work well

Specify our needs for team meetings

Synthesize the structures, conditions, and needs into a general team agenda

Product:

Draft of a skeleton or general agenda for team meetings that includes the goal,
structures, and conditions of the meetings

Process:

Appreciative Interview

1-4

Map Meetings

Discuss next steps

Appreciative interview

Talk about a meeting that was successful.

What need was met for you in that meeting?
What about that meeting worked well?
What made that meeting work well?
What structure does that imply for our meetings?

Annotated Agenda
Introduce meeting goals & objective, roadmap: 5 minutes [5 min]
Introduce AI & 1-4 Activities: 3 minutes [8 min]

Review handout

Appreciate Interview Activity: 37 minutes [45 min].

Purpose learn in depth a story of success then identify patterns common amongst
all stories

In pairs interview each other to learn more about a story

3 min each: Tell story to each other (6 min combined)
8 min each: Conduct interview (16 min combined). Listener take
general notes on the questions (worksheet).
Interviewer - focus on what made the success possible
3 min total: Prep BRIEF outline to tell partners story

Large group
3 min each: Tell your partners deep story: 3 minutes each (12
minutes total)

1-4: 20 minutes [65 minutes]

Purpose reflect on your own about our question, then gather our ideas together in
a brainstorm
o

5 minutes: On your own, answer the question: What patterns do we see

about the kinds of structures, conditions, work best for us, and what kind of
needs wed like met in meetings? Write notes on big sticky notes
SEE EXAMPLES
15 minutes: Come back to large group, go around circle putting ideas on flip
chart. (Categories: Structures, Conditions, Needs). BRAINSTORMING norms

Map Meetings: 20 minutes [85 minutes]

3 minutes: All together - Combine needs into logical groupings. Can duplicate
needs.
3 minutes: Individually - Based on these groupings, each person write down a goal
statement for one of the groupings.
3 minutes: All together assigned writer state goal (will be tweaked later)
10 minutes: ALL TOGETHER - Take one of the goals
o What structures might best support this goal?
o What about structures we didnt talk about that might support this goal?
o What conditions might support these goals?
o [move sticky notes around. Can duplicate notes]

Next steps [5 minutes]

Identify what work is needed to finalize meeting structures.

Volunteers complete work.
Determine how to finalize structures (meeting, via email, etc)