A P.S. to the Standup

Good news! The team I talked about in my recent post The best meeting : 10 minutes, no water bottles, no chairs, no tables, has now had four stand up meetings... FOUR.... and they're hooked!

Yes there was uncertainty. There was doubt. There was disbelief.

But there was also focus, clarity and progress.

They laughed. They even applauded spontaneously at the end of the first meeting.

And then off they went and started... doing! Hooray.

I'm still standing by them as they stand up, mainly to guide the leader with some facilitation skills. Of course, that leader already has some great facilitation skills, but you know what it's like when you're working with PEOPLE! :-)

We're all human and so the human leader just needs to deliver some more human to the humans in the stand up.

So a little coaching, guidance and debriefing for the leader on the fine art of 'handling the sh*t that goes down in groups' is what we've be doing after each of the stand ups.

I'll keep standing by their stand ups and look forward to seeing them getting on with great progress and celebrating - whether they stumble, fall, get up, fail, or go wildly beyond what they were expecting.

Are you standing up yet?

How to get the good stuff done

It truly is time to stop meeting like this. There have been some valiant attempts to get us to reinvent how, when, why and if we need to meet over recent years ... but it’s not changing quickly enough.

I think if you’re leading change, you just need to ‘step in’. Put your hand up, step up and say ‘yep, I’ll facilitate this one.’

Then say: ‘We’re making this a ‘doing’... not a meeting!’

Yep, meetings should be called ‘doings’. So you get stuff done. Otherwise, our meetings will continue to be dysfunctional. Too much time. Too little output. Too much talk. Too little listening. Too few actions. Too little impact. Too big a cost. 

I worked with a team recently to facilitate their team planning and strategy days and they were amazed at what they achieved in the time available. A day here. A day there. Yes that's what good facilitation will do for a group and the clear objective they had!

But it is also about HOW the meeting was set up, what the agenda looked like, how they worked together, what they did throughout the sessions and how there was a strong bias for action.

I'm all for setting aside some time for talk but that's what I do - set aside some time. Timebox it. You say 'this is how much time we have to talk about this topic.' Then go! Talk about it. I capture the key points raised, the key arguments and the main ideas and agreements. But we are always thinking about forward movement and progress. Doing.

So... timebox it 

Use the time boxing technique to get good stuff done.

I worked with some cool technology developers recently ho were working on a project for a major retail chain. Prior to the important client work, the team got together, to get their sh*t together. Smart team!

They had their strategy and planning day. And they were used to working together so what they did was use a clock with short timeframes to keep them moving, keep them progressing and keep them active. One of them was a keen runner, so they used a running clock on their iPad to segment out time for tasks throughout the day. Short intervals of just a couple of minutes.

It was brilliant to see. This team, pushed to decision making, action and prioritizing in two minutes. What!? I wondered if they could do it.... and yes, they did it. Time and time again throughout the day. Plenty of time to talk and discuss, but then it was down to action to decide and prioritise and they did it super-quick.

Get on with the doing, less of the meeting and you'll make a great start to your project and piece of work. Go. Do.

That little step between knowing and doing

'Thanks for the reminder'.

'That's a great refresher'.

'Yes, good to bring those points to the front of mind.'

If you've heard - or made - these comments when you've re-visited something you already know, it certainly IS a great reminder. A reminder of the v-a-s-t amounts of things you know.

And the gap between those things you know... and those you actually do.

You know how it goes; you start with great intentions but after a day or three, the new habit or the new behaviour or the great idea gets dropped, stopped, dumped.

Insert guilty face? No, leave that guilt and glum over there. Let's look at that little step between knowing and doing. 

In a hyper busy world, we've got to 'hack'. We've got to find a game, a technique or a way around, to be more productive and get to do the things we want to, need to or wish to.

We've got to find our own 'outta the box' solutions - even if they aren't slick or sharp - as long as they work for us, we are hacking the problem or situation or challenge.... to find a solution. 

You've got to unravel the Gordian Knot that is between what you know and what you do. 

And rather than thinking it's a big messy knot that you need to work on for hours, get a pair of scissors and cut the knot! That's a hack. Not so elegant, but super-functional, practical and ready to go!

Even when you think you don't have time to find a solution, look for a hack; that rough but productive work-around that will get you from knowing to doing.

The Accelerated Meeting Framework

'Everybody in the house put your hands up'... who would prefer that meetings went on l-o-n-g-e-r  than they already do?

And keep your hands up if you'd like those meetings to achieve even less than they do now?

Urgh - so many meetings are just a time, energy, mood and productivity waste that we can't even be bothered putting our hands up!

But what to do? How to keep it short, sharp, focused and driving towards outcomes?

Try my Accelerated Meeting Framework:

1. Start with the background - no interruptions, just set the scene of why we're here, what we're gonna do and the facts and data that inform where we're at now. 

2. Then open it up - stand back and let the talking and opinions fly. Let people have their say, put forward their viewpoint and get it off their chest. Be sure to make visual and visible note of the key things people are contributing. Keep it to the topic, share the contribution and 'air time' around. Beware, this is where things can go around in circles - summarise what the main views are. 

3. Generate ideas and opportunities, possibilities and potential. List them and visually capture them so people can see. Narrow down the ones that are quick wins, easy to implement, partially done (see my blog on Stop Starting, Start Finishing) or will bring a great return on investment. 

4. List the actions that are to be followed up and implemented. Put names and dates next to those. Make it visual and visible, so people can see what you've worked through and where you've got to. 

Done. 

The success of meetings, workshops and strategy sessions is judged on what is done, what is achieved and what progress is made.

You're responsible for leading a team to great progress. 

Use visuals with your meeting and you'll reduce meeting time by 25%.

Use my Accelerated Meeting Framework and you'll get through more, quicker. 

Clean up your (meeting) room!

Last week I ran a skills workshop in an organisation's meeting room. 

I could tell it was a meeting room because there was a sign on the door that said "Meeting Room". 

But if I'd been guided in there with my eyes closed and then opened my eyes, this room could have easliy doubled for the "Storage Room".

This meeting room was a dumping ground for old broken chairs, additional surplus chairs, trolleys, boxes of supplies, more chairs, some broken tables, filing cabinets, storage cupboards and other 'junk'. 

The environment this created was .... cluttering. 

I spent time before the session, clearing some breathing space, sectioning off an area and making sure the 'working space' was separate from the 'storage space'. There wasn't alot I could do about the 'rubbish space'. 

The feedback was that it was the best meeting room they'd seen and worked in. 

When space is at a premium, it's understandable that any sort of space begins to get taken over. 

But the cost on your communication, collaboration, productivity and performance suffers, particularly when you can't get things done swiftly or cleanly because the environment is polluted. 

Clean up your (meeting) room. And if you need half of it for a storeroom, then section it off so that the roles and purposes of those spaces are clear. 

How often do you hear interior designers on lifestyle shows talk about 'zones' for living. Retailers do it too. They're looking for ways to create an environment that will give you a positive reaction... not a reminder from your mum that you need to clean up your room!

So here's a reminder from me.... clean up your meeting room. It's costing you so much more than a bit of cluttered floor space.