I know, I know. It’s basically summer, and the only sort of meeting people are interested in, probably, is the sort pictured above. But Christina Katopodis has a terrific post up at the Futures Initiative website about “Revolutionary Office Meetings,” and it’s worth reading no matter the season.
As an Old Person, my official policy toward the label ‘revolutionary’ is “gee, I don’t know.” But Katopodis is persuasive on the connections between classroom pedagogy and good meeting habits, and is particularly good about the benefits of distributing accountability.
My favorite practical tip from the post is probably how she talks about agenda setting:
At FI [Futures Initiative] meetings, everyone takes the first 3 minutes of a meeting to write down 3 things they want to talk about, then we go around the room and share. If there’s repetition, that’s a good sign that’s something important we need to talk about. In a shared Google Doc, we list out all of the things in a table:
Left Column = Agenda Item
Right Column = # People Who Want/Need to Talk About It
The meeting leader coordinates this activity and guides us through the agenda items starting with the most pressing, immediate, popular needs first. This works really well to (1) get 100% participation, (2) make sure everyone is getting what they need from every meeting, and (3) keep our agendas fresh and on the pulse of what’s going on right now at FI.
That’s pretty solid! As she explains, there’re powerful incentives for people to copy-and-paste agenda items from the previous month, but this is a better way to get the most benefit from those times when everyone’s in the room together.
There’s more where that came from, so do read the whole post! (Or, if you just can’t even think about how to run meetings after the semester’s over, save a copy in your read-it-later tool of choice, and make a note to follow up in August.)
Do you have favorite tips for having more engaged, up-to-the-minute meetings? Please share in comments!
Photo “fun at the beach in November” by Flickr user US Fotografie / Creative Commons licensed BY-ND-2.0