The QLog

Micro-Meetings (14 of 99)

I define a micro-meeting as an event with four or less individuals that quickly reviews, discusses, and decides on a single problem within 20 minutes (and preferable 15). I know from experience that these can be very effective and efficient uses of time. While micro-meetings are often employed by a wide variety of organizations when a crisis occurs and rapid answers are required, there is no good reason why this type of meeting should be reserved solely for such occurrences.

Try it! The next time you have a small issue, assemble the team and let them know that time is limited and that the goal is to find a solution within the next 20 minutes. You will likely be surprised by how successful this can be.

Hot Teams

A Hot Team is a powerful and inclusive way to solve problem that works extremely well for organizations. What is a hot team? It is an energetic group that is assembled for a short time period to think, work, play, and innovate together. As a cross-functional group, by default, a hot team possesses a ‘wide view’ as the members have different backgrounds, experiences, and skill sets from diverse disciplines (this is the kind of team that contains sales, marketing, engineering, and IT, all acting as equals).

Hot teams are a temporary unit, but strive to work as a cohesive, cordial, and creative collective. Hot teams are dynamic and collaborative groups that may or may not have a single ‘leader’ (but they always appoint a group facilitator and scribe). Respect is a key factor for the success of such a short-lived group. Additionally, individuals within a hot team must be open to new ideas.

Here is the general process:

Define Problem: Before organizing a hot team, define a specific and urgent problem.

Form Team: Select a small group of individuals (5-10) from different professional domains to focus on the solution. Often, this team will consist of leaders, top-performers, and new members of the organization.

Meet: The team should meet immediately and setup a regular schedule.

Research: Each member will individually research the problem more deeply for future discussions.

Discuss: The team will attempt to see the problem from as many points-of-view as a group and attempt to understand various links and complexities. Information sharing is critical.

Brainstorm: As a group, brainstorming, prototyping, and other creative techniques are utilized to find novel solutions based on the known data. All hypotheses are welcome. The focus should be on the quantity of possibilities.

Decide: The focus shifts to quality. The team will choose two or three solutions they see as ‘best fit’ to their situation, taking into account many factors (such as speed, total cost, and ability to implement) and the strengths and weakeness of each one.

Write/Publish: The team documents their research and conclusions which provides next-step recommendations. This write-up should explicitly explain both the benefits and caveats with each potential solution. 

Implement: Implementation will likely impact a number of people and processes; therefore, it will need approval by management to be integrated into current systems. Hot team member are usually part of the implementation; however, hot teams are normally dissolved after they present their white paper or report.

Recording Meetings (13 of 99)

The content of the meeting, such as decisions and action items, should always be recorded for future reference. It is a good idea for the facilitator to appoint someone as a formal scribe to take detailed notes and then produce the meeting minutes (ideally, this role can be assigned before the meeting). Yet, the appointment of a scribe certainly does not automatically guarantee accuracy. I have attended a number of project and committee meetings over the years where important issues or discussions have been omitted (usually by mistake) or the specific details within this document were contrary to the actual outcome at the meeting.

I highly suggest that you take your own notes when attending meetings and make an extra effort to properly record anything that directly impacts you. When the minutes are prepared by the scribe, you will be able to double-check for correctness. If there is a conflict or error, then have the scribe modify the official minutes to reflect the correct record. This will save you time, money, energy, and prevent stress.

Why Are We Meeting? (12 of 99)

Meeting planners are extremely good at asking WHEN, WHERE, WHO, and WHAT when putting together an agenda. The focus of discussion during the majority of meetings is HOW and this is reasonable since the selection of effective and efficient processes is crucial for successful outcomes. Yet, I believe there would be fewer meetings if the often veiled and various WHY questions were asked first (e.g. Why are we meeting? Why is this important or being given a priority? Why does this make sense?). If more people considered WHY before WHO, WHAT and HOW, less time-wasting meeting meetings would result.

Meeting Assignments (11 of 99)

During recurring project meetings, it is common for the team to determine various subprojects and specific task that need to be completed. However, these sometimes encounter the ‘tragedy of the commons’ as no one person was accountable and they do not get completed in a timely manner. The solution is simple. First, assign these items to particular individuals so they are responsible for their oversight and completion. If possible, seek a qualified volunteer with the right skill set instead of relying on a random assignment process. Second, as a group, determine the deadline for execution so all parties agree. Third, ask the designated individual for status reports at subsequent meetings to insure follow-up and completion. 

I'm Back!

After my prolonged sabbatical from the blogosphere, I have finally returned. During the months of June, July, and August, I’ll be completing both the Delegation and Meeting series. Enjoy.

Stop The Meeting! (10 of 99)

Always end on-time. This is easy to do if you schedule your meetings AND start at the designated time. If everything can not be completed within the original time-table, simple schedule a follow-up meeting to conclude your unfinished business. Too often, those 'last five minutes' at the end of a meeting become long-winded discussion about a finer point and turns into another 20 minutes.

Solution: get in the habit of starting and ending meetings on-time. This discipline needs to be mastered for anyone desiring to become an effective facilitator.

Scheduling Meetings (9 of 99)

As a rule, unless there is a new 'fire' that requires an emergency meeting, do your best to schedule all meetings 48 hours prior to their initial start time. This is not only common courtesy; it helps the other participants schedule the rest of their day. Prior planning sends a message that the meeting topic is important and worthy of forethought by everyone.

Meeting Diversity (8 of 99)

Diversity is an often the missed ingredient at meeting that could have been great! Meetings are no place for ‘yes men’. Too often, a conference room is filled with a group of very smart people; yet, there are clones. What do I mean by clones? These are professionals with similar job titles, educational backgrounds, and conceptual models. For example, five accountants will tackle a particular problem with a similar set of best practices while a team of human resources specialists would handle the same issue differently than the bean counters, but probably in much the same way as one another. Solution: purposely invite individuals to a meeting who will have independent point of view, even if it may be contrarian to your own worldview. Meetings are the best place to discuss tough topics that are not black and white to achieve a better solution.

Shorter Meetings (7 of 99)

Human beings have short attention spans. Trying to accomplish too much of the same thing at one time, such as a long 2 hour meeting, is counter-productive. The overall effectiveness of marathon meetings is less than optimal. Instead, two meeting, each 1 hour, would be a better solution. In fact, I’ve found that single-topic meetings, 30 minutes can be plenty of time for discussion and deciding the next-steps. Plus, there is no penalty for ending early! More short meetings that are really effective are better than few long meetings that get very little accomplished.