Meeting participant preparation differs high-performance groups from normal or underperforming groups. Many people attend sessions with concern over What is in it for me.
Meeting participant preparation suggests that is neither the right attitude nor the right question. What they should ask is “What do you need or want from me (so that we can get done faster)?” What you should be encouraging is participant preparation.
Meeting Participant Preparation — What Do You Need from Me?
As a facilitator or session leader, it is virtually impossible to shift their attitude at the start of a meeting. To cause a shift in participant thinking, attitude, and behavior requires clear and two-way communication before the meeting begins.
Meeting Participant Preparation — What Does DONE Look Like!
Most meetings (at least the good ones) typically result in Action Plans and agreed-upon roles and responsibilities for making things happen. We expect to hold the participants accountable for their follow-up and get them involved before the meeting starts to understand and agree to the Purpose, Scope, Deliverables, and Simple Agenda for the meeting.
As the facilitator, you should expect participants to show up prepared. It is your responsibility to define “prepared.” How can participants arrive prepared if they do not know the purpose of the meeting before it starts? How can participants stay focused and complete on time if they do not understand the scope of the meeting (as discrete from the scope of the project the meeting may be supporting)? What can you do to get your participants prepared faster? Do they know “what done looks like (i.e., deliverable)”? How can participants agree to follow-up assignments if they are not permitted to provide their input, clarifications, and calibrations about HOW they are going to get done on time (i.e., the Agenda)?
Meeting Participant Preparation — If It Was Simple, We Wouldn’t Meet
Ultimately the reason for most meetings and workshops is that we need consensual answers to relatively complex questions. If the questions are simple, typically we do not need a meeting nor are there consensual challenges. Knowing that effective meetings develop consensual answers to questions and problems, the session leader must prepare and know in advance of the meeting, the questions that need to be answered.
Once developed and understood, do not hide the questions to be asked in a meeting. Share them in advance. Since select subject matter experts (i.e., participants) likely provide input on questions that are ‘closer to home.’ You can highlight the questions on an individual basis and explain to each participant that you expect them to think in advance about their responses. Explain that when the questions(s) are asked that you have highlighted, they need to take the lead. You expect them to take the lead and be among the first to offer up their subject matter expertise.
It’s not easy to run a successful meeting. That is why many meetings fail or frail. Your job is to make sure the meeting or workshop is off and running the moment you start. The only way to ensure that level of productivity is to prepare your participants in advance.
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities every day during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
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Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.
