Staff will take turns leading a staff meeting. Below are steps to prepare.
Running an effective meeting is a skill that is developed over many meetings. Successful meetings usually follow a set format that is easily followed by attendees and keeps the meeting on track/schedule. As the leader you should not be dominating the conversation, but acting more of a facilitator to accomplish the goals of the meeting. The Following Ten points will help you facilitate a successful meeting.
Define Goals and objectives with staff inputs. Email all the staff three days before the meeting asking if they have specific topics to add to the agenda.
It is important to prioritize the topics in the agenda so that the most important topics are covered within the allotted time. Ask Mike is you would like help prioritizing.
Distribute agenda in advance.
An agenda should have:
- Title
- Date
- Time
- Location
- Roles and Responsibilities (leader, recorder, time keeper, white board scribe …)
- Record Attendance
- Outline of topics and the amount of time you will spend on them.
- Test your materials first (video, projector, sound)
- Have an opening activity that starts the meeting off on a positive, open note. See below for ideas.
- Keep your meeting on track and on time.
Do not let the meeting go off on tangents. One good idea is to use a “Parking Lot” for new ideas that should be revisited in a future meeting. Add parking lot ideas to the draft agenda for the next meeting
- Make sure everyone gets to contribute and they feel like their ideas are heard.
- Summarize what attendees are saying while taking notes.
- Close with action steps and review what was covered Ask for feedback. Send action items from meeting to attending and non-attending members.
- Send out notes within 24 hours
Suggestions for opening activities:
The meeting facilitator is responsible for setting the tone of the meeting. In SL staff meetings, we generally open with an activity which gets people talking and thinking positively.
Goals for our opening activities may be to help us:
1) Get to know each other better,
2) Reflect on what we have learned recently,
3) Identify positive things going on,
4) Add humor/lesson the tension.
5) Remind us why we do this work; inspire us.
Try to include two of the above goals in your activity.
Important: watch the clock. Keep the opening activity to five minutes if the agenda is full.