Collaborative Meetings

This is a post I am writing as I explore collaborative work. This will be the first post about it as I research collaborative meetings with a goal of finding some good information about collaborative meeting facilitation. I found some great information here which I have paraphrased and summarised bellow.

Core Concepts of Collaboration

• Shared Objective: A common goal that is understood by all participants.
• Active Engagement: Encourages active participation for all participants and ensure all voices are heard.
• Transparency: Open communication during the session and ensure that everyone has access to materials to prepare beforehand.
• Shared Decision Making: Sharing decisions allows for different perspectives and more informed decisions.

Pre Meeting

Objectives/Agenda

Have an idea of what the meeting is about, this could be a high level goal like determining a technology for a new piece of work or how to slice a new piece of work. There should be an agenda that clearly states the topics of discussion and ideas for brainstorming.

Asynchronous Brainstorming

Ensure any information needed is disseminated prior to the meeting to give people enough time to brainstorm asynchronously, this gives people time to properly think of ideas and come up with outside the box solutions. This also leaves more time to discuss the results of the brainstorm during the meeting.

During the Meeting

Communication

My team is already fairly good at this, there is definitely room for improvement for us all but we practice a no blame culture already and are getting much better at open communication.

Active Participation

Getting everyone to contribute equally is very hard, not everyone likes to or is able to speak well in front of others. Here are some ideas to improve on how we do this:

• Embrace Diversity: Each member of the team has a different background and experience, this brings may different perspectives to the topic at hand.
• Open Ended Questions: Asking open ended questions generates a more diverse and useful response than just yes or no answers to closed ended questions, for example ask “Why is library A better than library B?” rather than “is library A better than library B?”, as you can see one provides information and context while the other gets a single word back.
• Active Listening: Pay attention to speakers, paraphrase their responses and ask questions, this ensures that everyone is on the same page and builds trust.

Timing

Ensure that the meeting is long enough to achieve its goal but not so long that people will lose focus and stop paying attention. Everyone has a different attention span so this is not an easy thing to balance so taking regular breaks during the meeting to allow people to recharge, get refreshments, or get fresh air will help people focus for the whole meeting.

Actions

Ensure that actions are assigned to specific people and that they are clear and have specific deliverables (where possible). If there is an action that the team has decided on and no one is assigned to it then it is possible it may fall through the cracks and not get done.

After the Meeting

Ensure that the meeting notes, actions or outcomes are documented and available within a short time frame, ideally no longer than 24 hours. If necessary schedule a follow up meeting to discuss the results of any actions taken as a result of the meeting.

Future Work

My next step on looking into collaborative work is to try and find some good articles about collaborative facilitation.