Effective Team Meetings

1
Effective Team Meetings
2
Agenda

• Objectives
• What are team meetings?
• How to make team meetings effective
• Team meeting agenda
• Code of conduct
• Roles and responsibilities
• Team leader hints
• Summary

3
Objectives
Training Strategies
Objectives
Training Strategies

• After training and follow-up
• coaching you will be able to
• Lead an effective team meeting using a standard
  agenda
• Use a code of conduct to get good meeting
  behavior
• Encourage participation, handle disruptive
  behavior and address concerns during team
  meetings

• Describe how to prepare and lead a team meeting
• Explain how to prepare a team meeting agenda
  using standard format
• Explain what is a code of conduct, give examples
• Describes hints for team leaders on how to
  encourage participation, handle disruptive
  behavior and address concerns

4
Exercise 1
Visualize the last bad meeting you attended
What made it bad?
Visualize the last good meeting you attended
hat made it good?
5
What are team meetings?

• Meetings are designed to
• Share ideas and information on improving
  performance
• Encourage team to work together to accomplish
  common goals
• Identify problems or opportunities, analyze
  causes and recommend solutions
• Provide team members with feedback on team
  performance
• Give recognition and reinforcement
• Connect everyone in the organization through team
  communication

6
What are team meetings?

• Team meetings are not
• Complaint or gripe sessions
• Pep talk
• Social get-togethers
• Time to blame, attack or criticize individuals
• Time to discuss contractual or personal matters

7
What are team meetings?
Up
Down
Across
You will be responsible for communication between
the team you lead and any teams in which you are
a member
8
Meetings, bloody meetings
8
ATK3/EOT.3p/sl
9
How to make team meetings effective

• Plan
• Prepare
• Inform
• Structure and control
• Summarize and record

10
How to make team meetings effective

• Before the meeting plan, prepare and inform
• Plan the main objectives that you want to
  accomplish
• Prepare an agenda
• Document the objective of any problem solving
  item
• Set time limits for each agenda topic
  proportional to its importance
• Give advance notice of the meeting and distribute
  agenda
• Update any graphs or other materials intended for
  the meeting and bring them

11
How to make team meetings effective

• Considerations in planning a meeting
• Motivation or common objective
• Frequency of meetings
• Composition of attendees
• Process used to run meeting

12
How to make team meetings effective

• During the meeting structure and control
• Start and end on time
• Ask team members for additional meeting agenda
  items
• Use a code of conduct, a gatekeeper and a minute
  taker
• Encourage participation and address all concerns
  equally
• Write the main points on whiteboards
• Write who is responsible next to each decision

13
How to make team meetings effective

• During the meeting tructure and control (cond)
• Break into small groups or assign a small group
  to work on an assignment outside the meeting
• Summarize and restate conclusions and assignments
• Conduct periodic evaluations of the meetings
• Evaluation T-account
• Quick verbal assessment
• Observer

14
How to make team meetings effective

• After the meeting summarize and record
• Concise minutes within 24 hours
• Follow-up on progress
• List incomplete actions on next agenda
• Get answers to questions and concerns

15
Team Meeting Agenda

• Using a standard agenda will help
• Setting objectives and checking for success
• Ensuring time spent on an item is commensurate
  with its importance
• Documenting all actions and responsibilities to
  ensure completion
• Use a standard agenda with
• Introduction and follow-up items
• Business Issues/Problem solving
• Questions/concerns and Communications
• Summary and next meeting

16
Team meeting agenda

• Use of a standard agenda helps to ensure that our
  team meetings cover all the important attributes
  of a successful meeting
• By using the agenda on a regular basis, it
  enables all teams, at any level, to become
  familiar with the format and style-improving the
  content, pace and efficiency of the meeting
• The standard agenda may not be appropriate for
  single topics or working sessions

17
Team meeting agenda

• Introduction and follow-up items
• Welcome, review meeting objective(s) and agenda
  appoint minute taker and gatekeeper
• Review previous meeting
• Minutes
• Highlights
• Questions and concerns
• Review team performance
• Team performance measures
• Recognition of individual efforts
• Review outstanding action items

18
Team meeting agenda

• Problem Solving/Business Issues
• Use creative problem solving techniques to
  address
• New opportunities for continuous improvement
• Specific performance problems
• Special items directed by management teams
• Management teams also work to resolve problems
  raised by subordinate teams
• Questions, Concerns and communications
• Questions, concerns and highlights of team
  members
• Incoming news items
• Outgoing (communication needs/issues)

19
Team meeting agenda

• Summary and next meeting
• Summary, quality assessment
• Next meeting(s)
• Agenda items for future meetings
• Action items from todays meeting
• Results in meeting
• Items to address in future meeting(s)

20
20
TIME
1.0 Introduction and follow-up 1.1 Review
meeting objective(s) and agenda appoint
minute taker and gatekeeper 1.2 Review
previous meeting Minutes Highlights
(including /changes) Questions and
concerns 1.3 Review team performance Team
performance measures Recognition of
individual efforts 1.4 Review outstanding
action items (see attached table/earlier
minutes) 2.0 Business Issues/Problem
Solving/Team Development
TIME BEGUN TIME ENDED GATE KEEPER
ID ISSUE DISCUSSION LEADER TIME
Team meeting agenda
DATE MEETING TIME MEETING LOCATION MINUTE
TAKER
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
TEAM MEMBERS (X) present
OTHER ATTENDEES
21
21
22
22
23
Team meeting agenda

• Make the format work for you
• Management teams
• Provide feedback on subordinate teams
• Address questions and concerns brought up by the
  organization
• Plan what to communicate down the organization
• Do not always have to cover every agenda item
• Summarize/restate any major point, decision or
  action item

24
Code of conduct

• Code of conduct
• A code of conduct is the sum of the rules and
  guidelines which the team will follow
• It should be developed and agreed upon by the
  team
• Once agreed to, it becomes the criteria against
  which a team members behavior is evaluated

25
Code of conduct

• Sample code of conduct
• Be on time
• Start on time/End on time
• You are responsible to catch up if you miss a
  meeting
• No ideas are stupid
• Conflict is allowed/Conflict must be resolved
• All are equal

26
Code of conduct

• Sample code of conduct (contd)
• Minimize superfluous talk
• Stay on topic
• Fulfill commitments
• Pay attention to speaker, avoid disrupting
• Be totally open to all ideas and suggestions from
  any source
• Dont jump to conclusions find causes first

27
Code of conduct

• Brainstorming exercise

What do you want to see in your teams code of
conduct?
28
Roles and responsibilities

• Role of the team leader
• Schedule, plan and prepare
• Lead the meetings
• Create open atmosphere
• Encourage participation
• Address team members concerns
• Provide performance feedback

29
Roles and responsibilities

• Role of the team leader (contd)
• Lead problem solving
• Handle disruptive behavior
• Keep the team on track
• Serve as communication link
• Push for results

30
Roles and responsibilities

• Role of team members
• Actively participate
• Volunteer and assume responsibilities
• Complete assigned tasks
• Reinforce each other and team leader
• Take turns as minute taker and gatekeeper

31
Roles and responsibilities

• Role of team coordinator
• Help team leader to prepare meetings
• Assist in leading team meetings
• Push for results
• Challenge team thinking
• Provide feedback to team leader

32
Managing meeting behavior

• How to encourage participation
• Welcome input
• Ask open-ended questions
• Call on people by name
• Listen to ideas
• Show interest
• Treat people equally

33
Managing meeting behavior

• How to encourage participation (contd)
• Rephrase comments
• Reinforce participation
• Never belittle anyone or any idea
• Encourage discussion of differing points of view
• Thank everyone for their ideas

34
Managing meeting behavior

• How to handle disruptive behavior
• Set expectations of behavior in meetings
• Model appropriate behavior
• Ignore disruptive behavior
• Draw the person back into the meeting
• Use self-disclosure
• Use empathy

35
Managing meeting behavior

• How to handle disruptive behavior (contd)
• Ask direct questions to refocus
• Rephrase to clarify disputes
• Cut off people who are monopolizing the
  discussion
• Provide negative feedback or counsel in private
• Address the person directly

36
Managing meeting behavior

• Addressing concerns
• Repeat or rephrase the concern
• List on whiteboard
• Categorize controllable and uncontrollable
• Set priorities
• Elevate uncontrollable concerns
• Report on progress
• Dont allow continued griping

37
Managing meeting behavior

• Frequent concerns
• Not enough people
• Management never listens
• Poor communication between shifts
• Need more training
• Too much overtime
• Too many meetings

38
Managing meeting behavior

• Exercise

What would you do as a team leader in the
following situations?
39
Managing meeting behavior

• You have one or two people who are always 5 to 10
  minutes late
• You have one person who always wants to talk
  about how things were handled 25 years ago
• You have two people who sit in the corner and
  discuss other work problems
• You have a person who tells jokes during the
  meeting and gets people off-track

40
Managing meeting behavior

• You have a person who never contributes, but
  sighs, stares out the window and looks bored
• You have two people who dont get along and who
  argue with each other during the meetings
• You have a person who falls asleep in meetings
• You have a person who speaks beyond the allotted
  time
• You have a person who interrupts

41
Managing meeting behavior

• In the previous meeting, a member agreed to
  complete a specific tasks. This task has not
  been done
• During the meeting, three or four members start
  talking at once. No one is sure what has been
  said
• A member has not said anything during the first
  two meetings. During the third meeting this
  person says, Yeah, I agree with Joe
• A member interrupts the leader, talks a lot and
  generally tries to take control of the meeting
  from the leader

42
Managing meeting behavior

• During the brainstorming session, all but one
  member have participated. How would you get this
  person involved?
• When suggestions are made, one member tends to be
  negative and points out whats wrong with the
  ideas other people generate and why they dont
  work
• One member constantly complains that she doesnt
  have time to work on her assignments

43
Managing meeting behavior

• A member feels that nothing can be accomplished
  until upper management gets organized. This
  person is not satisfied that management is
  working things at their level and complains by
  asking, What can management do about this?,
  rather than What can we do to solve the
  problem?
• A member is obviously angry about the group's
  decision that he originally supported and begins
  to argue with you
• One member makes a long statement that is
  important, but not clearly stated

44
Summary

• Team meetings are the vehicle for effective
  organizational teamwork
• Team meetings are designed to
• Share ideas and information on improving
  performance
• Encourage team to work together to accomplish
  common goals
• Identify problems or opportunities, analyze
  causes and recommend solutions
• Provide team members with feedback on team
  performance
• Give recognition and reinforcement
• Connect everyone in the organization through team
  communication

45
Summary

• To make team meetings effective, the team leader
  has to
• Plan, prepare and inform
• Structure and control
• Summarize and record
• Team meetings will follow a standard agenda. This
  will help
• Setting objectives and checking for success
• Ensuring time spent on an item is commensurate
  with its importance
• Documenting all actions and responsibilities to
  ensure completion
• The standard agenda items are
• Introduction and follow-up items
• Business issues/problem solving
• Questions/concerns and communications
• Summary and next meeting

46
Summary

• The Teams Code of Conduct represents the rules
  and guidelines which govern all team
  interactions inside and outside the meetings
• The team leader, team members, and the team
  coordinators each take on their own roles and
  responsibilities
• The team leaders role includes
• Encouraging participation
• Handling disruptive behavior
• Addressing team member concerns