Agile Teams

3 Actionable Tips To Plan and Prepare For Your Next Team Meeting

As we look towards a new year coming soon (Hello, 2022!), we can’t help but look back to what 2021 brought us.

During the early stages of the pandemic in 2020, teams were left scrambling to try working together from quickly thrown-together home offices – and adapt to this new normal of working from home while being part of a team.

Once 2021 came around and everyone hit their stride, new meeting formats emerged, and dare we say, are here to stay!

Post-Pandemic Meeting Formats

While these meeting formats aren’t new, they are now seen and used across the board in almost all companies we work with.

IN-PERSON: means that everyone that is attending the meeting will be located in the same physical space.

HYBRID: means that there will be people attending In-Person and Virtually

VIRTUAL: means that everyone attending the meeting will be connecting online.

The facilitation process for each of these types of meetings starts with planning and designing! One of the most important questions to get an answer to is “Why are we meeting?”

Why Are We Meeting?

The facilitator designs the meeting. A great place to start is by drafting an agenda.

Here are the questions that need answers!

What’s the purpose?
What are the desired outcomes
Who needs to be there?
How long?
What are the decisions? Who will make them and how will they make them?
What degree of facilitation is needed?
Could it be an email instead?

3 Actionable Tips to Plan and Prepare for Your Next Team Meeting

Here are three actionable tips to reignite your meetings!

1 Conduct a sponsor interview

Planning a meeting begins by envisioning what will have happened by the end of the meeting that will have made it successful “Start with the end in mind.”

An interview with the meeting sponsor, the person who will benefit from the outcome of the meeting, will help you identify the purpose and style of the meeting you are planning. If it’s more of a ‘tell’ vs ‘ask’ kind of meeting, you might need less design.

The more interaction, participation and input you are seeking from the group, the more planning and design time will be required.

2 Determine the type of meeting and degree of facilitation needed

Not every meeting needs a high degree of facilitation planning and design, but every meeting could benefit from someone who is able to step into the role of a facilitator, maintain neutrality and keep the conversation moving. Meetings that benefit greatly from intentional planning and design are meetings where new ideas and decision making are needed.

3 Create an agenda in question format

Most meeting agendas are written in phrases that refer to the topics as a noun like “release plan” or “team picnic” and include a verb in front like “discuss” or “decide”.

So the agenda might look like this:

Discuss risks
Decide on next release features

Here’s the challenge, how do we know when we’re done ‘discussing’ or when we’re ready to ‘decide’. It’s ambiguous and can be uninviting or confusing to participants.

Instead, view the meeting agenda as an opportunity to invite participants into a space to think together. Help them get warmed up by giving them an agenda in the format of questions to be answered.

5 Steps to Plan Your Next Team Meeting

Here are 5 steps the facilitator should take to ensure a successful team meeting.

Capture the meeting purpose.
Capture the outcomes.
Identify all the questions the team must answer that will lead to the answer of the meeting purpose and outcomes.
Identify the logical order for the team to answer the questions.
Send the agenda to participants ahead of time.

It’s imperative the facilitator carries this plan through during the meetings. That means the following:

Display the purpose, outcomes and agenda at the start so everyone can see them.
Review the meeting’s purpose, outcomes and agenda and answer any questions, if appropriate. Check for alignment from the group and address any issues, like not having the right people in the meeting or people thinking they were coming for a different purpose.

Next, read ‘How to Create Purposeful, Intentional Space for Effective Team Collaboration’ to learn more about facilitating hybrid meetings and download our FREE Facilitation Planning Toolkit!

How Daring to Dialogue Creates a Culture of Agility in Leadership (Part 1)

Have you ever experienced a time where you thought you were going to have a conversation, but instead you just got yelled at?

Have you ever thought you were going to have a conversation, but it ended up that one person spoke for the entire time and you didn’t get a word in?

Of course, you have. We all have.

And if we’re really honest, there are times when we have been the offender, rather than the victim of those. It makes sense, we’re working at a faster pace than ever in a time of constant change and it doesn’t always occur to us to be intentional about our conversation.

In fact, Playwright, George Bernard Shaw summed it up pretty well when he said,

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

A lot of times, we think we are communicating when we are really doing something else.

As an executive coach and team coach, and the author of The Art & Science of Facilitation, I work with leadership teams who are wrestling with big challenges that are getting in the way of the results that they really want.

In this three-part series, I will share some practical and actionable ways that you can bring more dialogue into your conversations. We’re going to look at what kind of conversations you have, when you suspend, and when you defend, and four actions that are required in all conversations.

In this first article, we are going to name and identify the types of conversations we have.

The Monologue: A Type of Conversation

Let’s look metaphorically at the kinds of conversations we engage in, and this comes from the work of William Issacs.

The first kind is monologue and monologue is a single voice, it’s turn-taking. I’ll say everything that I’m going to say, and then you can go.

It’s a monologue, it’s a download.

Comedians do monologues at the start of their sets, like Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show. Monologues are effective for getting a bunch of information out and setting the stage.

The Debate: A Type of Conversation

The next kind of conversation is debate, and it’s a beating down of the other. It’s probably the least effective mode of conversation.

This is advocacy for your point of view over others, and there will be a winner and a loser. In debate, I’m holding really strongly to my point of view. Unwilling to be swayed, my only job is to persuade or convince others of my way of thinking.

Debate can be very effective for highlighting the issues and really understanding the differences between two points of view.

However, when overused, which is often, debate can be quite toxic. Why? Missing form this conversation is inquiry.

For an example of debate, we can look at the political system here in the US. Political candidates often debate topics. And the mindset here is that there’s a right way and a wrong way to look at something.

On a smaller scale, debate can happen anytime there’s a decision to be made.

A common debate in my household is deciding what’s for dinner. This is my most dreaded conversation of each day. Either everybody wants something different and they’re advocating for what they want, or nobody has an answer at all. But if everybody wants something different and is unwilling to be persuaded, then we’re stuck. And deciding what’s for dinner at the end of the day is draining.

The Discussion: A Type of Conversation

The next kind of conversation is discussion and this word gets used a lot, usually with the intention of having a skillful conversation, which we’ll talk about in a moment, but it’s actually something a bit different.

Discussion is actually the kind of conversation that is set up for people to defend their points of view, but just in a more conversational way than we might think of as organized debate.

In fact, discussion means to “break apart”. And it’s certainly not a toxic back and forth, in the way that debate can be, but it can feel a little bit like table tennis, lobbing the ball back and forth.

Think about a time when you walked into a meeting and sat across the table from someone else and thought of yourself as separate from them and their issues.

A common example of a discussion (in Agile) is between a product owner and an architect. They’re working towards the goal of producing a product together, but they can often get stuck in thinking about their world or perspective that they bring. Thus think about end users versus technical design, and then the conversation can feel very broken apart in their different realms.

How Skillful Conversations Work!

Now, let’s circle back to the idea of skillful conversation and what people are often thinking when they use the word discussion.

In skillful conversation, we shift from thinking about sides to take and begin to look at the conversation itself as creating something. A bit like plowing the field where we’re digging under the surface, and this is where inquiry lives, and here the goal is to stay with something long enough to understand the thinking behind it.

In skillful conversation, we begin to shift from seeing just our differences to also seeing commonality, and this is where dialogue comes in.

Dare to Dialogue!

Dialogue, this last part is the art of creating a shared pool of meaning, and it’s a conversation with outsides. Only the idea of being curious and inquiring into differences and other perspectives. It’s the space where new thinking and new ideas happen.

In dialogue, like in debate, you can have a perspective, but your viewpoint doesn’t guide the conversation. In fact, in dialogue you suspend your point of view, not only to hear the others’ perspective, but to ask them more about it.

This is the space of curiosity and inquiry and listening without resistance, because this is where new thinking and innovation live.

The Gift That Dialogue Brings

When conversations bring new thinking and new insights and a view that we can do it, we can do this together, this is the gift that dialogue brings, and it takes a lot of courage to create.

Recap:

The kinds of conversations we engage in are

Monologue
Debate
Discussion
Skillful conversation
Dialogue

Each of these has a place and a time, and we need to know how to do each of them. Most of us are brilliant at monologue, debate, and discussion. We do them well. We’ve had years of practice.

In part two of this series, I will take you through examples of all five of these types of conversations, while part three will solely focus on dialogue.

If you’d rather take 30 minutes and watch Marsha present, click here to watch a video!

How to Facilitate Meetings Like A Pro – and Get Results (Part 1)

Are you ready to lay the foundation for leading engaging and productive meetings with purpose, clarity and confidence so that you can support agility within your teams?

The skills of facilitation and coaching are needed in our world. Over the past year and a half, we have adapted and found ways to be separate but connected.

In this two-part series, I want to share some strategies for facilitation that 100% still apply even if you are leading virtually.

As facilitators, we convene and host. Our primary focus is to identify the desired outcomes and then create a space that fosters connection, authenticity, trust, and sharing. We can do this remotely, just like we do in the room. I’ll be sharing principles for how to do just that!

Improving How You Facilitate: What That Looks Like

Whether you are a scrum master, agile coach, project manager or team lead, if you are charged with launching a new agile team or helping an existing team move toward higher performance, chances are you would like to improve the way you meet in some way.

Maybe…

You’re wanting to lead meetings that are valuable, that get people engaged, are productive, outcome oriented and are seen as a good use of people’s time
You know the agile practices really well but you are struggling with the effectiveness of your meetings
You want your meetings to be engaging and productive, and not a waste of time where people don’t want to participate
You are looking for a structured process for planning and designing your facilitated meetings, something that helps you add order to your planning rather than just ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ when you’re leading a meeting.
You want to lead highly effective, collaborative meetings with ease and confidence, which is something we teach in all of our programs at TeamCatapult

Mistakes You Might Be Making as You Facilitate

One of the challenges to facilitation is that when it’s done well you hardly know it’s happening and if the facilitator is really good you might not even notice them much at all. As a participant, you will likely be caught in the topic of conversation with the other participants.

This type of scenario can create one of the greatest mistakes in facilitation…

1 Believing that you can just do facilitation after having seen others make it look so easy.

Facilitation is a professional discipline and it’s both art and science. Good facilitators make it look easy, like all you need to do is grab a marker and head to a flip chart. Or open up a Zoom line and invite people to start collaborating. In reality there is ALOT going on for a facilitator. It takes formal training and practice! Just like playing the piano or flying a plane.

2 Are you participating rather than facilitating?

These are two different roles and depending on what’s at stake for you or your team, it’s SUPER easy to blur these lines. We’re going to talk today about ways to become more aware of this.

3 Not having a clearly designed purpose and agenda before the meeting starts.

You need to define these before you get to the meeting. Cutting short the planning and design phase or not doing any planning at all. Typically, a skilled facilitator will spend 2.5 times the meeting time just planning and designing a session. (And if you’re facilitating virtually or hybrid it’s more!)

Do you treat every decision in a collaborative meeting the same way? Or seek ‘agreement’ from the group on the decision? This is another common mistake!

4 Lack of clarity, for yourself and your team, about the role of a facilitator.

Believing that your role in the meeting is helping the group reach a decision that has already been made.

You’ve learned the agile practices, but a few months into implementation the excitement is wearing off and you are not seeing the results you had hoped for. Understanding the agile practices is not enough, agile is first and foremost about communication, collaboration, trust, and learning to see and navigate the human systems.

Mistakes I Made When I First Started Facilitating

Can I be frank? I made mistakes when I first started facilitating. Here are a few of my mistakes.

I overly controlled the meetings. I would ask a question of the group and then ask them to write their answers on a sticky note. I was very careful to let people speak, but only when I called on them. I never would ask an open ended question to the group. I was AFRAID that I would either get crickets or that the group would go completely off topic and I would look like I could not control the meeting. I’m sure some of those participants in my early meetings might tell you that they felt ‘overly managed’ during the meetings.

I drove my own agenda. I was ensuring that people just went through the motions of what they were asked to do. But we left all sorts of other topics on the table that were never really addressed.

I only got input from the leader or meeting sponsor – not the team on what the meeting should be about. That led to multiple sessions where I got blindsided by issues that were surfaced during a meeting and I really had no idea how to handle them or what to do when they were surfaced. I was a consultant and feared looking stupid or not being seen as valuable if I had to get a group to come up with a solution. I needed to prove my value in some way.

Facilitation Done Right!

It wasn’t until many years later that I learned how to

really connect a group
have greater awareness of my own beliefs about the group and understand what a profound impact my beliefs had on my ability to work with a group
to let go of control, to turn it over to the group,
to really listen to what people needed or were trying to say.

These were profound shifts in my mindset which allowed me to move from just instructing people to write on sticky notes but never really get at the heart of the real issue, to leading meetings that really got at the heart of what was blocking the team, not just to support the team in continuing their same patterns.

You can learn this advanced facilitation process as well.

In the meantime, read Part 2 of this series:

‘How to Lead Engaging and Productive Meetings’ and download this free Facilitation Planning Toolkit!

What Will You Focus On In 2018?

I LOVE January! A new year and a new start.

There is something so invigorating about a clean slate. White space. A chance to reflect on what I’ve learned.

What do I want to try again?
What do I want to keep?
What do I want to discard?
What will I refine?
Where do I want to create something new?

It’s like a big release retrospective! It’s also the time of year where we make lists, set goals and define intentions.

Leaders Need To Focus

In our work with leaders, we help them focus. We help them define foci (pronounced fo-sigh) statements.

Foci statements are positive, inspiring and bold. They are so BOLD that they may even be hard to write down at first because they will not feel real or possible.

It will be a statement that would make the greatest difference for you if it were true this time next year. This statement should say something about who you are being.

Some examples would be:

I am a courageous and authentic leader.
I am a published author.
I am an authentic team member.

Want To Give It a Try?

1. What’s something that would make the greatest difference for you if it were true in January 2019?

Think about an area of your life where you want to make a change. It might be leadership, family, work relationships, your partner/spouse, your personal well-being. What’s the area that you want to place your attention this year because attention in this space would have the biggest impact and make the greatest difference for you?

2. What do you want to accomplish most?

Brainstorm a list. No judging! Just create a list of the big, bold things that you want to accomplish. They might be things like: Get a new job. Take more time off. Exercise more. Grow my business.

3. Now that you have your list, narrow it down.

First Step: What’s the one thing on this list that would make the greatest difference in your life?

Next Step: Who do you need to BE in order to accomplish this?

What Is Your Foci Statement?

Thinking about that one thing you want to accomplish, who would you need to BE in order to accomplish this? I’ve had the idea to write a book since 1994. I think about, I talk about it, I dream about it, I brainstorm titles for the book. But it’s 2018 and the book is still not written. Because, for me, my mindset, the way I think about writing, gets in my way of actually writing. What I want is the outcome of writing a book. That’s something that I will DO. But what’s missing is who I need to BE in order for a book to happen.

For me, my foci statement is “I am a voice for collaborative leadership.” One of the ways that I get in my own way when it comes to writing is I devalue what I have to say in comparison to what others might say. This statement is important to me because notice it says “a voice,” not “THE voice,” not “THE RIGHT voice,” not “THE ONLY voice,” but “A voice.” I do have something to say about this topic and I do have quite a bit of experience with it, because it is how I lead. So that one phrase “I am a voice for collaborative leadership” is my foci statement. I keep it posted where I can see it and I have to remind myself like 100 times every 15 minutes to stay focused on that.

You Know You’ve Landed The Right Foci Statement If It:

takes your breath away to say it today
feels far away
will be an edge, something just outside your comfort zone
inspires you and call you forward to the next level

Here Are Some Inspiring Foci Statements That Other Leaders Have Created:

I am courageously authentic, fiercely courageous
I am a force multiplier
I am a wildly successful entrepreneur
I am a teacher that inspires and energizes others
I am an inspiring and motivating leader

Ongoing Step: How Will You Know?

Once you have a foci statement that resonates, capture a few things that will help you to know what this looks like. These are measures, the yardstick by which you define this foci statement today. These should be concrete and measurable.

Some of my measures are:

I write one blog a month
I have completed a draft of a book by June 1, 2018
I write every weekday for at least 20 minutes
I publish one article by October 1, 2018

I can’t predict in Jan 2018 all the different kinds of opportunities that might emerge that fit under this heading of being a voice for collaborative leadership.

Here’s the thing about foci statements, they are like agile projects.

So I’ll check in on these measures every month and I’ll adapt them because they might shift or change.

Be willing to adapt your measures. Allow yourself to make changes without removing the measures completely.

Who knows if a book will be written, but I’m writing the book because I want to share what I see. Maybe, a book will happen or maybe I’ll find another way to share my voice. Either way, I’m creating space for moving forward on something. I am focused on what’s important and I will make space for the unknown!

What’s Your Focus for 2018?

Drop me a note and share!
(When you see me you have my permission to ask me about my book writing. There is nothing greater than public accountability!)

Cheers to 2018!
Marsha