Guidelines for Efficient Moderated Meetings

meetings.rst

Guidelines for Efficient Moderated Meetings

Purpose

• have short, efficient meetings that honor the contributions of all members

• prevent many failure modes that derail meetings, including:

  • going too long
  • one person dominating (despite non-expertise)
  • getting off task
  • no takeaways / next steps

Assumptions:

• consensus model
• all participants are equal in authority

Meetings follow this flow:

1. appoint: moderator, time-keeper, queue, note-taker.
2. set up parking lot.
3. decide agenda. Assign time limits and scope for each topic.
4. re-order agenda.
5. discuss each topic (see below)
6. at end of meeting, review all agenda points, and assign takeaways.

Roles:

Moderator Role:

• keep discussion on task, and flowing
• agenda items should be (mostly) goal-oriented.
• ONE at a time. One thing at a time, one person speaking at a time.

• acknowledge all input

  • suggest tabling topics (to the parking lot) if extra time remains
  • watch the queue, to ensure people (eventually) get their say.
  • suggest refocus or agenda revision, if participants seem to want it

• make room for quieter people, if they want to participate
• if you are also a participant, yield appropriately
• pull items from the parking lot, when time remains

Participant Role:

• do state from experience
• be concise
• don't talk over each other
• don't hog / dominate the conversation

Queue:

• help moderator by noting when people want to speak, and taking names, so they can put their hands down.
• interrupt moderator if queue gets too long.

Timekeeper Role:

• notify moderator 5, and 1 minute before allotted time for an agenda item is reached.

Notes Role:

• keep notes
• summarize takeaways from agenda items.
• record 'next step' assignments.

Example Agenda

• (5 min) summarize research on queuing (ZeroMQ)
• 15. Discuss where queuing fits in our workflow, if anywhere
• 5. decide next-steps for json interface