Three basic rules for meeting facilitation

Have you ever thought:

• Why is this meeting so long?
• I have another meeting in 5 minutes, so why are we still off-topic?
• What is this meeting about?
• Are they listening, or not? Why are their cameras off?"
• What is the actual outcome of this meeting?
• How long ago did I stop listening? I don't understand anything they're talking about. It's not my fault.

Organizing meetings is challenging, especially in the era of working remotely. I worked in so many different companies. I was a member of the team or a meeting facilitator so often that I feel ready to tell you what the most important rules of the meeting's facilitation are.

I. Agenda

A good agenda is an obvious rule but it's the most ignored one. You can't imagine how many meetings are a waste of time because of it. A well-constructed agenda might be your lifesaver as a meeting facilitator.

Just be careful. As a fresh facilitator, I began doing agendas so seriously that it seems very funny now. Circular meetings had the whole sense of the meeting described in English with links to extra materials such as "How to optimize RETRO organization as a team member?".

The result: overwhelm, exaggeration. No one knew what this was about. No one read the agenda. Simply, it was too long to care for the average person.

Of course, my agendas had essential items like the "Goal of the meeting" and schedule (if the meeting was split into smaller subjects). People with no time would read just the first few sentences, and those curious would read the rest. I truly believed it.

Nothing more mistaken. Both groups got lost in the ocean of information.

The best agenda is short and straightforward. It should be written down on the meeting invitation and repeated at the beginning of the meeting. Otherwise - You can resign from it because it costs a lot of time and brings no effort to the table.

Keep the agenda clear and straightforward.

II. Clear goal

People struggle to be focused all the time on the meeting. Why? Mainly because we are not machines. We are human beings. We can only assume we can always work on the 100% focus.

That's why having a good facilitator on the board is very important.

If you want to help your team overcome communication problems, remember the subject of the meeting should be your guidepost. You must step in each time the team loses the goal from the horizon, especially if your team is very talkative and passionate about the topic. In such crews, there is a significant tendency to skip from the topic to the topic without any decisions or conclusions. If Your team often complain about miscommunication and tracking the course problems, this might be the source of the problem. So you can be bold and confident to remind the team about the topic to ensure you get the long-term good.

Sentence ideas for reminding the topic:

• "Victor, I appreciate your thought. Please remind us of this idea during Friday's meeting. I suggest to return to our main goal now, which is X."
• "Sophia, it is an excellent point of view. I have written it down for the future in the backlog. However, we all agreed to figure out how to deal with X today. Let's go back to the subject."
• "George, good idea. However, we have just 5 minutes to figure out the solution for X . Let's return to the topic."

It is essential to listen to the team and keep their voice distinct. At the same time, you can't let the meeting facilitate itself. This balance is probably hard to learn, but it is the most crucial ability of the facilitator.

What if your team in opposition to talking a lot, sit quietly? Be prepared. Think about the topic of the meeting and prepare some helpful questions to let them solve the problem. You don't have to know the answer. Search for practical facilitation questions in almost every problem-solving process, so don't be surprised by the issue. Always be ready.

Sentences which are not so obvious but could help:

• "Steven, please rephrase the problem with your own words."
• "What could we sacrifice to solve the issue?"
• "Bob, if you had infinite time and budget, would you know the solution?"
• "Is there any tool that helps define the source of the problem?"

Stick to the topic.

III. Sum up

When I was a developer or tech lead, I often had a strange feeling that we all misunderstood the meeting outcome. I was usually right, and each person took different ideas from the meeting for our solution. We discovered later that UX drew solution X, the developer checked libraries for solution Y and the manager expected solution Z.

That's why each meeting MUST HAVE a conclusion...

...even if you are off the schedule.

...even if someone has another meeting.

...even if someone is hungry.

...even if whatever excuse your team has.

I saw it so many times that I can't even count it. Meeting without a conclusion or summing up is simply a waste of everyone's time.

You don't believe me? Does your team work without the conclusion of the meetings?

You might be wrong. Have you ever asked the team if they talked about the problem during lunchtime or called each other about it after the meeting because they needed clarification? You can be proud that your team figure out the way out of miscommunication. However, if you want to help them stay well-organized, start concluding the meetings. How simple is that?

Moreover, a very good habit for each meeting facilitator is to send a note about the decisions and actions, which were chosen to be done in the email form or place them somewhere in the JIRA as a task or just post it as short information on the Slack channel around the topic.

Make sure to take conclusions.

Conclusion

As we wrap up, I challenge you to implement these principles in your next meeting. Craft a concise agenda, maintain a clear focus on your objectives, and always conclude with a strong summary. Skeptical? Give it a try and prove me wrong. The results might just redefine your team's meeting culture."