[IAEP] Fwd: Running good meetings

[Mel Chua]

Note that these are (1) really long and (2) incomplete - I'm working on
these, particularly making them shorter. This is just a first braindump
because Marco asked how I ran meetings... if people are interested / can
think of a good place to post them outside a textfile on my hard drive, I'll
gladly move my work to there.

-Mel

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Marco Pesenti Gritti
<mpgritti at gmail.com>wrote:

> Since each team is running meetings now, I thought I'd forward these
> notes from Mel. I think they contain a bunch of concrete advises on
> how make them better!
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Mel Chua <mel at melchua.com>
> Date: Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 6:42 AM
> Subject: Running good meetings
> To: Marco Pesenti Gritti <mpgritti at gmail.com>
>
>
> (Note that I don't always do all of these because I forget stuff
> sometimes, but as I think through my "if I was actually
> super-disciplined about running meetings correctly, here's what I'd
> do" list, here's what I came up with.)
>
> These are notes specifically applicable to running IRC meetings with
> meetbot using using Mediawiki (with Semantic Mediawiki) as a
> note-taking system, but the general principles apply to running any
> sort of meeting.
>
> Before the meeting:
>
> 0. Make it really easy to take/manage meeting notes. See
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_testing_meetings for an example -
> Skierpage was awesome and made the "How to add a meeting" button +
> semantic mediawiki stuff, which pulls from this template:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Template:New_community_testing_meeting (But
> for the really cool stuff, check out the source on for
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_testing_meetings#Meeting_minutes
> for SMW-fu).
>
> Basically, I asked Skierpage to help me make a system that I would
> *not* be too lazy to use. ;) See
> http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/wiki-gang/2008-October/000059.html
> for this discussion.
>
> 1. Have a draft agenda on a wiki page, using the system from #0.
> Pre-filling the page with a template stub (the "How to add a meeting"
> button + http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Template:New_community_testing_meeting
> template) helps a lot to decrease gruntwork.
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=Community_testing_meetings/2008-11-06&oldid=178820
> is an example of pre-meeting notes - note that there's one section per
> agenda item, with short notes arrayed below.
>
> When there's a lot of background information, or when somebody wants
> to voice their opinion before the meeting, or can't make the meeting
> and wants to put their thoughts forth for consideration, link to it.
> For example:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_testing_meetings/2008-11-06/Prioritizing_activities_to_test
>
> 2. Send out reminder emails about the meeting - mention it (with a
> link to the draft agenda) when you send out the minutes from the
> previous meeting, and send a reminder the day before or the day of the
> meeting itself (also with the draft agenda link).
>
> 3. Invite people personally to the meeting over email, in IRC, when
> you see them... anything. Try to bring up specific things that they
> might be interested in, or that you would like them to come talk
> about. "Hey Mel, we're going to talk about cheese - I remember you
> were telling me about this wonderful cheddar that you had last week
> and thought you might enjoy coming and speaking about that..."
>
> 4. Remind people to come to the meeting right before it starts. You'll
> see me poking my head into offices, walking by people's desks, or at
> the very least sitting at mine and suddenly hollering "Hey guys!
> Community test meeting in 5 minutes in the #olpc-meeting channel!"
>
> 5. As people file into the meeting room, greet and welcome them and
> thank them for coming in a bit early / on time. This is important! It
> confirms to them that there's a meeting on, gives you a good sense of
> who's present (for a virtual meeting), and makes it clear that being
> on time is Awesome.
>
> 6. A minute or so before the meeting starts, look around and say
> something like "it's almost time to start, is everybody ready?" to
> remind people that the actual get-down-to-business time is coming up.
>
> During the meeting:
>
> 7. Begin the meeting. (Meetbot command: #startmeeting) This should be
> *exactly* on time, if at all humanly possible, and it should be
> incredibly obvious to everyone that the meeting has started. Pound a
> gavel, wave your arms, say "Time to focus!" or "The meeting has
> started!" or... well, I'm sure you can think of wittier things to say.
>
> 8. Thank everyone for coming, again.
>
> 9. If you haven't taken attendance some other way, ask for a roll call
> or otherwise figure out who's present, who's lurking, who's doing
> something else but can be poked to chime in on something (remember,
> when you call on them, that it usually takes them a couple minutes to
> realize you're trying to get their attention, so if you can tell them
> "your topic is coming up soon" a few minutes in advance, you usually
> get better results.)
>
> Ideally, though, the vast majority of your attendees will be present
> and focused on the meeting and only on the meeting. (If this isn't the
> case, try to figure out how you can work things out for the next
> meeting so that they are. Meetings with everyone half-present tend to
> drag on and be painful because nobody's really thinking.)
>
> 10. Post the link to the draft agenda, and then post the abbreviated
> version of the agenda - I copy-paste the Table of Contents from the
> wiki agenda page. Again, see
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=Community_testing_meetings/2008-11-06&oldid=178820
> as an example.
>
> Note that last-minute rearranging of the agenda wiki page before
> sending this link is totally okay. ;) I mean, it's not ideal. But it's
> okay. (Although this could also be my excuse for doing this All The
> Time.)
>
> 11. Ask for comments on the agenda or any last-minute decisions. This
> is important because once you lock in the agenda, you want to stick to
> it.
>
> 12. Phrase your questions with default answers whenever you can - for
> instance, instead of "Any additions to the agenda?" say "Any additions
> to the agenda? If not, we'll start with the first item, which is: What
> Type Of Cheese Should We Get For Tomorrow's Fondue?"
>
> 13. If your questions don't get answered within 20-40 seconds, say
> something like "Anybody?" or "I'll take that response as a yes," or
> "All right, moving on..." or some other "I am warning you that we are
> making a transition to a different topic!" phrase, wait a few more
> seconds, and then switch topics. (To your first agenda item. Remember,
> you're going through *only* your agenda items. This is absolutely
> firm. Ideally you'll go through them in order, though this is not so
> firm.)
>
> 14. Discuss the agenda item at hand, and only the agenda item at hand.
> If people drift off topic, but what they say is close enough that it
> can be re-steered into the conversation, say something like "That's a
> great point, how can we apply it to Thursday's fondue cheese selection
> (or whatever the topic is)?" Find some way to gently re-fold it into
> the conversation topic.
>
> If the point they bring up can be folded into a later agenda item,
> tell them to bring it up when that agenda item comes up. "We're going
> to talk about chocolate in a few minutes, would you mind bringing this
> up again then?"
>
> If their point can't be folded into any agenda item but is on-topic
> for that kind of meeting, ask if they would like to lead a discussion
> on that during the next meeting, and then tell them to put it as an
> agenda item, led by them, on the next meeting's draft agenda.
> "Actually, that would be a great thing to talk about at our next
> meeting. Do you think you could lead a discussion on that next week?
> You can? Thanks! Can you put it on next week's meeting agenda
> wikipage, and put your name there so I remember that you'll be leading
> that discussion? The link is..."
>
> If their point is totally off topic for the meeting or the group, tell
> them so; if you can, point them towards the proper venue for it.
> "Actually, salad selection is outside the domain of the fondue group,
> but the Appetizers Committee is meeting on Friday, and Marco runs that
> meeting; you should ask him if you can talk about it then."
>
> 15. #14 relies mainly on one thing - that at any given time, it should
> be clear what the agenda item/topic is. Give reminders occasionally if
> needed. Reference back to the notes on the draft wiki page. That's why
> you put them there beforehand - in addition to being useful
> pre-reading, they also give you things to use to steer the
> conversation back on topic. "Actually, let's look at what Marco said
> earlier about Muenster cheese - if you read this email that he wrote,
> you'll see that..."
>
> 16. Oh, yes. If new people come in, welcome them, thank them for
> coming, send them the agenda, and tell them what agenda item you're
> discussing. "Hi, Mel! Glad you could make it. The agenda is at... and
> we're talking about item 5, 'should we have bread or crackers?' right
> now."
>
> 17. It helps to have commonly-accessed URLs (where you can get a
> meeting transcript, the draft agenda, the previous meeting's minutes,
> next week's meeting agenda...) in a text document or somewhere else
> you can rapidly copy-paste them from.
>
> (Ideally, something like meetbot would store those URLs beforehand and
> then you could call them out as needed, but that feature isn't there
> yet. Something like "Hi, Mel! Glad you could make it. Here are the
> logs so far - meetbot: #logs" and then meetbot would spit out the
> appropriate URL, which you told it beforehand.)
>
> 18. If things are too quiet, call on people individually for thoughts
> and comments. "Greg, do you know if we have any vegans coming to the
> party who can't eat cheese? Chris, do you know if the bread we're
> planning on using is vegetarian? Brian, you used to cook for somebody
> with food allergies - what should we avoid?"
>
> 19. If things are too noisy, step back and rephrase them as topics in
> a linear order, and then go through that order. "Okay, I think we have
> several conversations going on here - Kim, why don't you talk about
> why we should use French bread first, and then Frances can make her
> case for crackers, and then I want to make sure we hear Joe's
> suggestions on how to slice the vegetables for dipping."
>
> ...wow, this is longer than I thought it would be. More to come later.
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