Team meetings are often perceived as a waste of time: long preparation, unconstructive dialogues, lack of rules and conclusions. However, correctly conducted team meetings help to create an environment for open discussion of the problems to be solved and the results to be consolidated.
The beginning of the meeting is the most important stage to make team meetings more useful and effective. It's at this stage the team understand what the meeting is about, how critical it is to them, and how willing they are to engage.
There are 3 key components to take care of at the beginning of every meeting:
โ emotional;
โ contextual;
โ formal-technical.
Emotional component
- or the answer to the question: how to help people tune in to the meeting?
When coming to a meeting, each participant is still thinking about his or her previous tasks: something is not going well, something is frustrating or, on the contrary, something is pleasing. In any case, morally, the participant is still immersed in his thoughts. Therefore, at the beginning of any meeting, it is necessary to help participants switch from the previous agenda to the new one.
Moreover, any exercises related to emotions help to build empathy and trust in the team, from which the effectiveness of the team increases.
Small talks and Icebreakers are good for emotional tuning.
Small talks
are not conversation simulators.
Often small talk is perceived as a simulation of an introductory conversation that doesn't carry much meaning like talking about the weather for a tick or the latest news to break an awkward silence.
But that's not the point and value of it!
It's all about the approach: small talk can be a useful tool in relationship building if you view it as a form of communication with its own goals and characteristics.
Why do you need small talk?
To make it easier to start a conversation with strangers and not feel too uncomfortable.
What's important to think about in advance?
Answer the questions:
- What do you want to get out of this conversation?
- How can you structure the conversation so that everyone is comfortable?
3 steps to make a small talk effective:
Step 1:
Try to assess at the start how ready the person is to communicate. To do this, ask some open-ended questions broader and deeper than the standard "how are you?".
Single answers should alert and highlight that the person is not very interested in communication.
Step 2:
Don't forget about the other party's interests by jumping into the conversation with your thoughts and ideas.
Create a space where the person can talk about themselves and their experiences. This will help them open up a bit, and help you see points of intersection and additional topics of conversation.
Step 3:
When you find overlaps, don't leave the "ball" on the other side of the field โengage more actively in the conversation and talk about yourself.
If a person has come to communicate and is open to dialog, then your thoughts and reactions are potentially interesting to them. Such a dialog will be two-way.
How to evaluate the results of a small talk?
A small talk is needed to create a safe, comfortable zone for communication, where you can talk openly without feeling uncomfortable.
It can end without a specific result โ for example, just to fill a pause โ or it can lead to useful and pleasant acquaintances.
Icebreakers
are small tasks to start the meeting. Their purpose is to set the team up for the meeting and get them involved.
Icebreaker types:
Icebreaker around the team
- helps meeting participants relax, chat and laugh
Use to get to know each other and bring the team together.
For example, at a planning sprint, ask the team to show the most interesting photos from the weekend (or memes) and afterward, ask them to guess what was going on at that moment.
Some of the options: ๐ ask a funny question (e.g., what strange item is in your refrigerator right now?); ๐ ask them to identify 10 commonalities among all meeting participants; ๐ฎ mini-games (e.g. ZOOM already has embedded games that can be launched directly during the conference); ๐ ask for the odd fact about yourself. This will work especially well with unfamiliar and remote teams who can find someone who shares their hobbies; ๐ use emotion grounding tactics for tired teams (e.g., ask meeting participants to describe the 5 senses: what they are seeing, hearing, smelling, touching their desk, emotions they are experiencing). This will help the team feel heard.
Icebreaker around the meeting topic
- helps the team dive into the agenda and understand the issue
Use to explore the issue, to find ideas for improving processes or team relationships.
For example, at a retrospective on a project, you could ask participants to describe their state of mind while working through pictures/photos/gifs. This will help both the participants to get more comfortable in a serious conversation and the organizer to understand the direction of the meeting.
Some of the options: ๐คจ ask for answers to unusual questions (e.g., who is the main person affected by the project?); ๐ต๏ธโโ๏ธ offer the team a set of words and ask them to choose the one that best describes the team's work; ๐ take a position on an agenda item and invite the team to argue with you or support you.
Contextual component
or the answer to the question: what is happening now?
Context includes 2 main points: formulating the goal of the meeting and the background to the issue being discussed (agenda).
The goal
is the most important detail of any meeting that keeps the team focused. By realizing the purpose, everyone understands why they came to the meeting and their role, so they become more productive.
Usually the purpose is stated in the invitation to the meeting, fixed on slides, spoken at the very beginning. However, this is often not enough and discussions go in a completely different direction.
It is necessary to dive deeper into the details of the goal (What is the goal about? What aspects need to be addressed? Why is it important to the team?) without stopping at a short, precise statement.
If the timing of the meeting allows, try to discuss the goal with all participants: clarify how everyone understands the goal, what they see as the outcome of the meeting, how the meeting can change work processes.
If time is short, use a template:
The agenda
or the answer to the question why are we discussing this?
Tell participants where the idea to hold a meeting on this issue came from, whether there has been a discussion of this issue before and what it led to.
This will help participants formulate their own opinions about the issue under discussion and understand which ways are more/less successful and rank them in their proposals.
Formal-technical component
or the answer to the question how is it going to work?
Check technical readiness
Are everyone's microphones working? Are the cameras on? Are the slides displayed? Were you able to access the necessary website?
This will help avoid meeting delays in the future.
Set time limits
It is influential at the beginning of the meeting to recall the length and schedule of the meeting, and to fix how much time each team member has for discussion.
For example, the regulations could be as follows:
- 2 minutes for a nonwork story (how was your day or week, how are you doing, what was interesting in your personal life);
- 5 minutes for a report on goals achieved, for example, for the last week;
- 2 minutes to describe a problem that could not be solved on your own;
- 5 minutes to discuss the problem and find solutions. In the previous chapter, we talked about what a meeting warm-up might look like and how to schedule time: Problem 4. Timing
This will help participants keep themselves in focus.
Distribute areas of responsibility
Emphasize the responsibilities of meeting participants: who takes notes, who records agreements, who sends out the results of the meeting.
This will help participants better understand what is required of them.
What if there are different meetings, but the framing is the same?
This framing is universal for all types of meetings, because it covers the most important planes for meeting customization.
However, if you try to fit 2 different types of meetings into one meeting, framing will not help you run an effective meeting: colleagues will get confused between the two agendas, will prepare for the activities envisioned by a certain type of meeting, may form expectations in advance and be disappointed at the very beginning.
In each meeting, stick exclusively to the agenda and activities that are envisioned by the type of meeting and will meet the expectations of the participants.
The type of meeting always depends on the objective and the planned results. There are 6 types of team meetings that every team needs:
Planning
- helps the team to work faster by setting clear objectives, clear deadlines and timeframes.
The main aspects of planning are:
- setting and discussing tasks and subtasks;
- assigning responsibilities;
- setting clear deadlines;
- gathering necessary materials/documents.
All of this will increase consistency within the team: everyone will understand who they can come to with questions.
The types of planning required are:
- sprint planning;
- period planning (e.g., quarter, year);
- project planning.
Creative sessions
- meetings to create/discuss new ideas, directions, products of the company.
At such meetings, the team can show creative potential to achieve specific goals of the meeting.
Creative sessions can be held in different formats: seminars, games, brainstorming sessions, workshops.
Retrospectives
- a meeting aimed at getting the team to understand their problems and possible solutions.
The purpose of the retrospective is to get a plan for change at the end of the meetings. Therefore, a retrospective usually starts with the question, "What do you see as the problems?".
Retrospectives come in many forms:
- a retrospective of a specific period;
- a problem retrospective;
- a retrospective on a single issue (e.g., a project) etc.
More about retro on a separate page:
Problem sessions
All teams sooner or later face challenges related to specific projects, team goals, business objectives, internal company policies, etc.
The main formats are:
- review of incidents;
- process adjustments.
Team building sessions
- the purpose of such meetings is to create a strong, effective and cohesive team.
This effect is achieved by creating a free environment for communication within the team.
The main formats:
- games and entertainment for cohesion (joint trip to the nature, remote bar on Fridays);
- meetings for solving problems and conflicts (debates, negotiations, reflection);
- corporate training.
1ั 1
- regular meeting of the manager with each of his/her employees.
1x1 helps to customize the relationship between the manager and the employees.
These meetings often include discussion of:
- the employee's personal priorities and the company's priorities;
- the employee's experiences and concerns;
- the employee's strengths and weaknesses;
- the employee's development trajectory;
- feedback on the actions of the manager/company.
That is, 1x1 provides an opportunity to discuss what is uncomfortable to discuss at general team meetings.
