Structure for a more effective Management Meeting

Structure
for Leadership Group Management Meetings

By T.J. Elliott

Cavanaugh Leahy & Company

Pre-meeting

Contribute items for agenda: the items should fit what the group has agreed is its work. (See the section below on the work of the group.)

Note three things about each item: its purpose (information sharing, decision-making, problem-solving, questioning), its ‘roll call’ status (red, yellow or green light), its dimension (tactics, strategy, vision) On this last point, the group will undoubtedly need to better define the agreed upon meaning of those three words.

Initial criteria for placement on agenda: crucial to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), others need to know, decisions need to be made, notable success (green light), need help (yellow or red light) The group must in their process reflection address whether the criteria for agenda placement require revision. In other words, are items ending up on the agenda that belong more properly in one-on-one or subcommittee conversations?

Request a specific amount of time for that item’s presentation and discussion. This is an estimate and the group may decide to alter the allotted time at the beginning of or during the course of the actual meeting.

The agenda must allow for a full hour at the end of each day for process reflection, action item list, etc.

Handouts are all distributed before the meeting; the amount of lead-time depends upon the frequency of the meetings, 48 hours for monthly meetings or 1 day for weekly meetings.

In this way, less time is spent on education of the issues, and more on discussion and conclusions. Participants thus may jot down in advance any questions they have about a particular issue.

Meeting Management Tasks

Set roles:

Timekeeper, i.e., per person/presentation. Suggestion: start with group leader in this role and let someone else take it on when he is presenting. Eventually rotate the job. Timekeeper lets the person know when half of and then all of their allotted time is up so the group can decide whether they will continue to work on that item or otherwise deal with it.

Parking lot attendant: this person is charged with keeping track of the issues that the group decides to put to the side. This is very important because this mechanism allows the group to be more efficient while not losing potentially important issues through the cracks. The parking lot attendant is asked to summarize the issues at the end of the day so that the group can determine how to respond to them. Rotate this job. Don’t let someone do it two days in a row. This person might also have the responsibility of capturing the items that need to be on the agenda for the next meeting.

Action item writer: this person is charged with noting the actions that members of the group agree to in the course of the meeting. Rotate this job. Don’t let someone do it two days in a row.

What is the purpose of this meeting?

Go around the room. Thirty seconds per individual is allotted to state their sense of the purpose of the day. (That’s right, one half of a minute, a great deal can be communicated in that brief time.) Each speaker should include their most important item; something that must take place today. (E.g., "I have to get the XYZ situation solved.")

Note agreements to adhere to guidelines, to check on effectiveness, and where possible to come to clear conclusions, or if unlikely to do so agree to put issue in parking lot. The group can omit this step after their own version of these rules has taken root.

Prioritize Agenda:

Some key items in less frequent meetings, i.e., CFO’s current Quarter & Forecast, KPI review Key Performance Indicators (such as on time deliveries, retention of customers, quality/cost of quality goals as determined by teams, and others), etc. should always be on the agenda up front in the Information-sharing section. If the group has yet to identify KPIs that becomes one their most prominent tasks. Any group is well served by reference to some agreed upon measure that allows it to look at the progress made in key areas.

With that reference as background, the group guided by its leader should quickly agree on the relative priority of the items of each section. In other words, does the agenda reflect which of these items in each of the sections below is most important? Rearrange the agenda so that you can move quickly through certain information-sharing items and spend the bulk of your time in making decisions and solving problems.

If the agenda needs to be revised in its set times, then the group quickly agrees as to how much time is to be allotted. If an item is ‘bumped’ from the agenda as a result of this revision then the group must address how and when they will address that item (next meeting, interim meeting, one on one conversation, etc.)

Here are some general guidelines for the arrangement of the agenda:

Information-sharing items are addressed first. These are issues that do not require discussion. They should usually be under five minutes in duration. (Participants should have already received and reviewed copies of the overheads; therefore, these presentations take them over somewhat familiar ground. This an important point; the group must avoid long discussion of quarterly results or KPIs at this point. If there is a problem that is causing some difficulty in these kinds of figures then that should be addressed in the appropriate discussion.)

Questioning items are addressed second. These are not problems but rather requests for information that an individual wants to ask of the entire group. These should take five minutes or less. If they take longer, they should probably move to the parking lot.

Decision-making and problem-solving occur third and fourth respectively. These are major issues and the times of their presentation, discussion, and resolution may vary. One guideline, however, is that the presentation of a decision item should take less than one-third of the total time allotted for it. The presentation of a problem-solving item should take less than one-fourth of the time allotted. Otherwise, a speaker could use up all of the time describing the problem and not have any time for the group to actually attempt solution. For example, a request for help in solving a personnel problem that is allotted twenty minutes should accomplish the presentation of the essential facts in less than five of those minutes.)

Emergency items may arise. The group makes a quick decision using their guidelines whether to move such an item to the front of the discussion. The group should acknowledge that they will then have to forego some or all of certain sections such as information-sharing to make up for the time now allotted to the emergency item.

Review of last meeting’s action items

The person responsible for each item gives 30 second status report. If the item is again on the agenda, the responsible person postpones even this brief report in the interest of efficiency.

Present agenda items

The person who submitted an item makes a brief presentation of the dimensions of the issue. The expectations of the group about all presentations include:

that the presenter has jotted down his/her key points on paper before speaking
that the presenter will state the most important point of the issue in the first sentence and, if appropriate, whether this is a red. yellow, or green light issue
that the presenter will in the second sentence clearly inform the others if there is a request for help, support, information, etc. contained within the presentation
that the presenter does not use all of the allotted time describing the issue; time is allowed for questions, answers, discussion, and conclusions
that the presenter is following the guidelines; i.e., he or she is making their reasoning public, sharing their data for their conclusions, focus on interests not positions, etc.
that those responding to the presenter will link their statements; i.e., they will acknowledge what the previous speaker has said (whether disagreeing or disagreeing) at the beginning of their own comments
that those responding will say only what needs to be said (there is no need nor incentive to speak on every subject) and will strive to understand before evaluating, to support the presenter as a member of the team even when disagreeing
that the leader of the group (or facilitator in such situations) might interrupt to question whether the team is seeking a vague and undefined perfect solution, has blurred the discussion, is pursuing ‘rabbit trails’ -- distracting or marginal ideas, is repeating itself, etc.
that where a decision is requested but unachievable that the group will set deadlines for making intermediate and/or final decisions.
that the timekeeper will let people know when the allotted time is up on each issue so that the group may then decide if they wish to add time so as to continue discussion on that issue and from which of the remaining elements they will subtract that time

Process Check

Periodically check on the adherence to meeting guidelines and how we are doing on process. In longer meetings this might occur at lunch or a break. In shorter meetings, a few minutes at the end of the meeting should be reserved for this purpose. (The leader must enact the discipline of asking such questions since many groups will prefer to give those minutes over to continued discussion of an agenda item.) The group asks itself, "Are we being effective in this meeting?" Periodically check on some meeting process measures, i.e.:

Are we discussing "undiscussibles"
Are people being more open & direct?
Is the discussion focused?
Are we coming to solid conclusions?
Are we hitting the important issues?
Are we executing against plans?

(For more detailed consideration of these points, see the document 11 Agreements for Effective Groups.)

In the last hour of longer meetings, and the last ten minutes of shorter ones, the leader assures that there is a:
Parking lot report:

The group notes the issues in the ‘lot’ and decides how to immediately address them. For example, they may choose to talk about one for ten minutes and assign the others to interim meetings.

Process reflection:

Check guidelines
Anything learned? Anything changed in your theory?

Action item report

Who has agreed to do what by when with which measures of completion? This is the basis of the report for the beginning of the next session so the participant in this role must write all of these down, as well as arrange for their transcription, and distribution to all other participants.

Sample Agenda Template: Full day Meeting

8 - 8:15AM Introduction & Purpose

8:15 - 9:15AM Information-sharing items

9:15 - 9:30AM Break

9:30 - 10AM Questioning items

10 - 12 NOON Decision-making and problem-solving items

12 - 1:00PM Lunch

1:00 - 1:15PM Process Check

1:15 - 3:45PM Decision-making and problem-solving items

3:45 - 4:00PM Break

4:00 - 4:15PM Parking Lot

4:15 - 4:45PM Process reflection

4:45 - 5:00PM Action item list

Work of the group

Each leadership group is different in circumstances but likely shares some principles. They need to carefully and explicitly define what their work is. However, by definition, the leadership of an organization should act as a decision-making group. The work of leadership groups in their regular meetings often has certain common elements and emphases:

First among these is helping the company or organization be competent in operating efficiently and satisfying customer needs. (Whether the company uses a measure such as net profit or customer satisfaction depends upon its particular circumstances.) This happens through sharing knowledge, testing assumptions, asking questions, developing and deciding actions, offering experience. Much of this relates to improving performance in some specific site or function of the company. The essence of the work of the group is assuring alignment and integration among all of the various units and staff of the company.

The other major aspect for leadership groups is foreseeing events and opportunity, responding to general problems and crises. This might also include addressing issues both of strategic fit (how to trim resources, how to find a competitive niche, how to communicate down to other staff) and leveraging resources (open new markets, invent innovative ‘rules’ for the corporation, get other staff to communicate up).

Leadership groups meet jointly and state their intent to act as a team in service of the above points. Therefore, their work also includes figuring out how to meet most effectively and efficiently. Thus part of the (reflective) work of the group is learning how they can better execute in all of the above areas. It also includes looking at their processes and methods (such as their management meetings) to determine what changes need to be made, what measures of effectiveness should be adopted in order to be more productive as a team. Finally, the work of the group overlaps with individual work; each member is also attempting to make their own individual efforts more effective and efficient.