I am often asked to facilitate an after-action review (AAR) upon the completion of a project. It's a bit more formal than a standard debriefing and allows the participants to truly understand what happened and create some preventive and mitigating strategies for the next project.
AAR typically occurs when the project went south...but can also be applied to glorious projects that we wish we could clone and replicate!
Want your teams to stay focused? Capture and post key information for all to see – on a whiteboard, on flipchart paper, or on the screen. By writing down what has been said, team members will stay focused and on track as well as remember and act on the information well after the meeting.
If your team is like most, it relies on two or three strategies to make decisions: consensus, team input with the team leader making the final decision, or the loudest voice wins. Effective teams use MANY different decision-making strategies, such as these.
If you are serious about moving your organization from a traditional, hierarchical organization into flexible, nimble teams, think through the benefits and costs—as well as the many cultural changes that you, your employees, and your customers will have to face. For some, the changes are just too great, and teams may not be the best solution. For many, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages.
Any organization interested in moving toward a team-based environment should have the following things in place.
A client of mine was frustrated that nothing was happening after a team meeting. He said, “It’s a great conversation, but then everyone goes back to ‘work,’ and nothing happens!”
It’s a common complaint as most teams identify potential tasks throughout the course of their meetings and then walk away thinking that everyone knows what they need to do.
Au contraire! Unless you have a process to ensure all know what needs to be done, who is responsible for doing it, and by when, it’s no surprise nothing happens.
Most North American companies and organizations reward individual performance. We celebrate our individuality and want to be compensated and rewarded for our efforts. However, if you want your people to perform as a team, you must reward them as a team.
People choose their seats for all kinds of reasons. Some sit wherever there is an empty seat. Others want to sit where they always do. Some want to sit next to a particular person. Others want to be close to the coffee pot. But how do you choose where to sit to help you achieve your objective? Try these tips.
This type of teamwork doesn’t happen overnight. It starts with a few people who set the standard and ground rules for team cooperation.
Whenever I am facilitating a team that is facing a potential decision, I suggest using a process tool called a “Force-Field Analysis.” Here is how it works.
As a professional meeting facilitator, hybrid business meetings are simply harder to design and coordinate as you need to meet the needs of two audiences and ensure an appropriate level of engagement and collaboration.
So here are my top ten tips to lead and/or facilitate an effective hybrid business meeting.
I'd like to embellish on Matthew Rechs' 11 Promises as a Manager to include 11 Promises as a Team Member.
All teams should agree on how they will manage time during a meeting. Unless noted otherwise, the leader keeps time and the rest of the team is subject to the skill of the leader to keep the meeting on track between topics and to end the meeting on time.
That is quite the task. The leader is already busy managing the content of the meeting! Why not ask for a little help from another team member to manage time during a meeting? Here's how to assign the role and what it entails.
High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold explains the stage of brainstorming when true innovation and creativity take place.
Your team has just brainstormed a creative, long list of ideas, solutions, problems, causes, or other items. Now what? Rather than simply roll up the flipcharts, toss them in a corner and forget them, you can take the next step and narrow down the list with these voting variations.
High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold defines what a "team memory" is and why it's so important to record them.
High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares details about the role of the meeting facilitator.
There’s a reason why brainstorming has gotten such a bad reputation – and it all boils down to the fact that most people don’t know how to brainstorm effectively. Here's how to do it.
Most brainstorming lists end up in a long-forgotten pile — usually because the list was too long or intimidating to deal with. By organizing your brainstormed ideas, you can quickly sort your long list into a few manageable categories.
High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold explains "non-promotable" work and why we need to be intentional about assigning it as team leaders.
Bring your team together to get clarity and alignment on what you need to do in the next year or so with this strategy to develop a quick strategic plan.
High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold has created a process with steps to create listening posts for voice of the customer.
High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares a few ways to use coffee cups to encourage networking and teambuilding.
Neil Hoyne, in his new book, "Converted: The Data-Driven Way to Win Customers' Hearts" provides the insight that only the chief data-guy at Google can share. High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares the details.
High-stakes meeting facilitator Kristin Arnold shares a number of ways leaders and their teams can improve their team communication by focusing on their body language.