The FireFly Whiteboard - Effective Meeting Facilitation Strategies, Team-Building Tools, and Training Techniques from Kimberly Douglas, President of FireFly Facilitation.

The Top Pitfalls of Pitiful Meetings…that can be corrected before the meeting even starts! ...Meeting Effectiveness Tips from FireFly Facilitation

The following pitfalls below are all points that can be avoided or corrected before the meeting even starts. For each pitfall, I share with you my expert tips on how to run a meeting like a pro!  To see the entire list, refer to the previous post, The Top Ten Pitfalls of Pitiful Meetings.

– No clear reason for meeting – Look back to the earlier post that talks about “When NOT to have a meeting”. The very first thing I discussed is being clear on the meeting deliverables – what do you hope to walk out of this meeting with. Being clear about this one thing will ensure a greater likelihood of an effective meeting than anything else you can do.

– No agenda sent out in advance – Remember the last time you actually received an agenda in advance of a meeting? Likely, you immediately had a higher perception of whether this meeting was going to be a waste of time or not. Of course, if you don’t have an agenda planned to begin with, then you can’t send it in advance - which reinforces the top point of no clear reason for meeting. Be sure in knowing why you are having the meeting, create a draft agenda, and then let the participants know about the meeting. Finalize the agenda once you know who will be attending. 

– Not getting the right people to attend – Would you attend a meeting (if you could get out of it) if you didn’t know why the meeting was being held and why you in particular were invited? Too many times we invite too many people and don’t make clear what role we want them to play – do we want them to be an expert, the influencer, or a decider? Be strategic.

FireFly Facilitation Answers a Blogger’s Meeting Effectiveness Question: “When is it okay to do online meetings?”

Regular team or project meetings are one example of when it is okay to have people participating virtually. With the time and cost involved in travel today, this is a business reality to be expected.

Since each company may have their own unique meetings that are well-suited to an online format, I think I can provide greater value by telling you when NOT to conduct a meeting virtually.

• First, when the key purpose of the meeting is to deal with a high-conflict situation. You need to have all of the key stakeholders in the room together to be able to read each other’s body language – since this is how we know if the words being said are being confirmed or refuted. No online meeting can replace face-to-face in these situations.
• Second, when the meeting purpose is to brainstorm solutions and action steps for a very tough problem. While virtual meeting technology has come a long way, it still can’t hold a candle to the creative energy that arises when you have a group of people in a room – with a skilled facilitator, of course! – collaborating to solve a critical business issue.

To help you decide on virtual or not, seriously weigh the pros and cons of each option. I know it’s not always under your control whether the meeting will be in person or online, but at least think about it.

Remember, post a comment or question by clicking on Comments ( ) below…and I look forward to answering it an upcoming blog!

The Top Ten Pitfalls of Pitiful Meetings...Meeting Effectiveness Tips from FireFly Facilitation

What’s your personal meeting pet peeve? Is it…no clear agenda for the meeting…not starting and/or ending on time…one person dominating the meeting…or something else altogether?

Having sat through countless meetings myself, I am here to share with you that while some were truly great, unfortunately many more really just missed the mark – and could have been so much better with just a little bit more effort.

To set the stage, I want to let you in on what my 15 years of experience have taught me by listing what I have found to be        The Top Pitfalls of Pitiful Meetings:

1. No clear reason for the meeting

2. No agenda sent out in advance

3. Not getting the right people to attend

4. No agreed upon decision-making process

5. Not starting and ending on time

6. Not using ground rules

7. Ineffectively dealing with conflict

8. Disengaged participants

9. Allowing certain participants to dominate

10.Not capturing or following through on meeting decisions

In the upcoming posts, I will start addressing the pitfalls above (or others!) that get the most feedback. I would love to hear which meeting pet peeves are most important to you, so please leave a comment by clicking on the Comment () link below, and I promise to give you useful, practical tips for solving them.

When NOT to Have a Meeting…Important Meeting Effectiveness Tips from FireFly Facilitation

Stop…think…do you really need to have that meeting on Friday afternoon? Feel strange to give serious thought to not having a meeting? At FireFly Facilitation we believe you should question whether every meeting needs to be held.

How do you know when not to have a meeting?

Step One: Decide on the meeting deliverables – these will drive decisions on everything else.  A clear example of a deliverable…“A concrete action plan for solving the driver attendance problem.”

Here are some thought-starter questions to develop the meeting deliverable(s):

• How would you define success for this meeting?
  
  
• What three things must be accomplished?
  
  
• What should the participants know, think, feel and do differently once they leave the meeting?

Step Two: Cancel the meeting if…

• The timing is not right – all the information or key people are not available.
  
  
• A group decision is not needed.
  
  
• You can’t figure out what you want to accomplish – it will surely be a waste of valuable time.
  • Side note – Think about how much money will be wasted based on the salaries of the participants. And don’t even get me started on the lost opportunity cost and the drain on employee motivation when stuck in an unproductive meeting.

Step Three: Ask if there’s another way to achieve those meeting deliverables. Such as...

• A brief phone call or one-on-one conversation
  
  
• An email exchange
  
  
• Posting a document on a shared drive for people to add their comments and questions

My hope is you will never look at a meeting the same way again. You can now become known in your company for asking the most productive question of the day...

                       So, why are we meeting?

 
Next up on our blog: The Top Ten Pitfalls of Pitiful Meetings!

Which meetings, or parts of meetings, do you see as the biggest time waster? Share your thoughts here!