Course Description
Master
proven skills and techniques to maximize the value of any meeting
Design Effective Meetings for Every Situation.
Our failure to properly design and facilitate effective meetings leads to one
of the business world's most common frustrations - the time-wasting meeting. If
given the choice, most people would rather come in early, stay late, or even
work through lunch rather than attend one more inefficiently run meeting. Late
starts, even later finishes, private agendas, loss of control by the meeting
facilitator: these common problems result in major management frustrations,
lost productivity, missed deadlines, and ineffective and missed communications.
Effective Meeting Design and Facilitation attacks the problem of meeting
failures by addressing the root causes: poor planning and faulty execution.
Ineffective meetings are costly…preventing them isn't!
The lost value to a project of a ten-person poorly-run one-hour meeting can be
in the thousands of dollars. And this figure does not even start to include the
detrimental effects of poorly understood or missed communications. By investing
in just a few key skills and using them consistently, you can save significant
time and money on your projects, and ultimately deliver higher-quality communications
to your team members and key stakeholders.
Discover the real-world techniques that will help you
immediately.
This two-day course will give you hands-on experience with the latest proven
techniques for designing and facilitating effective, focused meetings. Lively
lectures combined with insightful demonstrations and realistic practice
exercises will provide you with the competence and confidence to improve your
meeting management skills. You'll gain a thorough understanding of meeting
types, the challenges faced in meeting facilitation, and practical approaches
for handling meeting (and team) pathologies. Make your project meetings into
opportunities to build team cohesion, create buy-in from team members and key
stakeholders, and most importantly get things done. Regardless of your
organization's environment, you can't afford to miss this course!
Specifically, you will:
·
Learn to align meeting designs with project or business
requirements
·
Set the parameters of team and stakeholder expectations prior
to meetings
·
Establish effective team behaviors in different types of
meetings
·
Identify common meeting execution problems and deal with
them in real-time
·
Learn to classify team member behaviors and respond to
them in the most appropriate fashion
·
Make mundane meetings into effective team-building
sessions
·
Turn any meeting into an efficient problem-solving
session
Key Benefits of Attending this Course:
1. Design the meeting that
satisfies your requirements.
2. Understand the
characteristics of a well-written agenda.
3. Ensure everyone comes to
your meetings with all necessary information.
4. Know when to schedule a
meeting, and when not to.
5. Learn your strengths and
weaknesses as a meeting facilitator, and how to capitalize on the former and
counter the latter.
6. Learn how to effectively
draw out information from reluctant meeting members.
7. Handle emergency
meetings, keeping every ones "eye on the ball."
8. Know when, and when not,
to allow meeting members to make team decisions.
9. Teach your team members
how to properly respond to informational meetings
10. Don't say "no"
- negotiate it.
11. Start and finish meetings
on-time.
12. Teach team members to
actively listen both in and out of meetings.
13. Prevent the
"Know-it-All" or "Steamroller" from taking over your
meeting.
14. Stop destructive team
behaviors stemming from "Snipers."
15. Effectively communicate
with project stakeholders at all levels.
16. Build team cohesion
through negotiating buy-in.
17. Coordinate your meetings
with your communications management plan.
18. Maximize your meeting's
productivity with effective follow-up.
19. Give and receive
effective criticism.
20. Ensure meeting action
items are accomplished on-time, on-budget, and right THE FIRST TIME!
Course
Outline
I. The Communications Model
Understanding
the specifics of how communications take place can help you not only avoid
common mistakes, but optimize your message for greater effectiveness and
efficiency.
·
The Feedback Model - Use your knowledge of communications
to aid understanding
·
Channels of Communication - Understand that you
communicate at many different levels
·
Channel Conflict - What happens when the message sent at
the different channels conflict with one another
·
Reinforcing Your Message Through Channels - If channel
conflict detracts from the underlying message, ensuring channel congruence
reinforces and enhances understanding
·
Choosing your Channels - Determine what channels of
communication work best for you
Exercise: Reinforcing with
Channels - Students will design a simple presentation that coordinates verbal,
tone of voice, and body language channels of communication.
II. Effective Listening
It
is not only the speaker who is responsible for effective communications.
Listeners have responsibilities too, and they need to actively participate for
effective communications.
·
Active Listening Techniques - Utilize attending skills,
restatement, summarization, and open-ended questions to help a speaker get the
message across
·
The Challenges to Active Listening - Understand where
active listening can go awry, and what can be done to prevent it
Exercise: Active Listening -
Students will take turns playing the role of an active listener to encourage
the flow of information from a speaker.
III. Effective Feedback
Giving
feedback can be difficult - for both parties. Know how to deliver feedback that
gets to the point, stays on target, avoids diversions, and gets results.
·
Planning for Effective Feedback - Know the four elements
that are a part of effective feedback
·
Delivering Feedback - Learn how to "script"
your presentation in order to make it work
·
Dealing with Digressions - Nobody likes negative
feedback; Learn how to deal with digressions and sidetracks
Exercise: Delivering Effective
Feedback - Students will compose and deliver feedback messages for a variety of
situations.
IV. Types of Meetings
Different
informational requirements demand different types of meetings. Learn the types
of meetings, the different rules that apply to each, and how to set meeting
expectations in advance.
·
Informational - Encouraging active listening in a meeting
presentation
·
Discussion - Lead meetings that encourage and support
participation from everyone
·
Decision - When to, and when not to, use group-decision
meetings; Understand the role of decision meetings in team building and
leadership
·
Emergency - Lead meetings that confront the emergency
rather than point fingers and assign blame
·
Virtual Meetings - Use the technology wisely, while
understanding the special pitfalls of virtual meetings
·
Conference Calls - Understand the how communication
channels can work for, and against, you
·
Joint Application Development - When is it used and how
will you use it?
Exercise: Choosing the Meeting
Type - Students will evaluate when, and when not, to utilize each of the
meeting types, and when a meeting is even necessary.
V. Meeting Design and Planning
If
you don't know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?
Effective meetings require advance planning. Learn how to set the stage, line
up your meeting logistics, and bring your entire team up to speed BEFORE the
meeting even begins.
·
Meeting Logistics - Get the parts aligned — Where will
you meet, when will you meet, etc.
·
Preparing the Agenda - Coordinate presentations,
materials, and times
·
Inviting Participation - Differentiate between who needs
to be at a meeting and who does not
·
Handouts and Readings - If it is important enough to
discuss, should it be sent out in advance? Ensure that participants are ready
in advance
Exercise:
Creating
the Meeting Agenda
VI. Presentation Skills
Don't
let simple delivery messenger mistakes divert your team's attention from the
message. Hone your presentation skills for maximum message effectiveness.
·
Posture, Poise, and Presence - Reinforce your position as
a leader using "stage presence"
·
Time Management - Keeping your presentation simple, focused,
and straightforward
·
Handouts - When you do and do not use handouts; Rules and
guidelines for handouts
·
Slides and Audio-Visuals - Overemphasizing the technology
of the presentation can not only backfire, it can crash and burn; Drive the
visuals, don't let them drive you
·
Communicating with the Non-Technical Audience - Acronyms
and buzzwords may aid communications between tech types, but they are a
formidable barrier for communicating with non-technical participants. Learn how
to remove these barriers from your presentation
Exercise: Making a Presentation -
Students will develop detailed presentation plans for various scenarios.
VII. Facilitating Tools
Any
meeting can end up stalling due to lack of participation. Learn how to avoid
roadblocks, work your way through meeting block, and keep the creative process
going.
·
Facilitating - Understanding the advantages and
disadvantages of facilitating vs. leading a meeting
·
Negotiating - Reaching agreement can not only solve
problems, it can build teams and reinforce leadership positions
·
Brainstorming - Encourage the possibilities and keep
negative attitudes from derailing your meeting
·
Asking Questions: The Power of Open-Ended Questions -
Asking the right sort of question at the right time can keep the creative
process going
Exercise:
Negotiating
to No - Students will engage in impromptu negotiations to solve simulated
meeting problems.
VIII. Conflict Resolution
Meetings
involve people, and people often have different priorities and viewpoints.
Learn the strategies for dealing with the Steamroller, the Know-It-All, the
Sniper, and a host of other less-than-helpful meeting participants.
·
Meeting Pitfalls - What do you do when the right people
are not on time? When people come unprepared? When time constraints are not
honored?
·
Handling Difficult Participants - Deal effectively with
the "Steamroller," the "Sniper," and a whole host of
other"problem children"
·
Giving and Receiving Criticism - Criticism can result in
growth, but not if it is poorly given or received; Learn how to structure
criticism that solves the problem but doesn't hurt the receiver
·
Delivering Bad News - Bad news happens; How to deliver
bad news in such a way that you don't complicate an already unfortunate
situation
Exercise:
The
Combative Attendee - Students will take turns handling problem participants in
a meeting environment.
IX. Meeting Follow-up
Now
that the meeting is over, it isn't really over. Follow up your meeting with
techniques that ensure that your meeting's ideas and action items are followed
up and implemented in a timely fashion.
·
Assigning Responsibility - Make sure you cover all the
elements of assigning action items
·
Action Items - Using deliverables to ensure prompt and
correct action
·
Documentation and Minutes - Nobody wants to do minutes,
nobody wants to read minutes; Ensure that your minutes are done, done
correctly, and followed up on in a timely fashion
Exercise: Including action items
in Minutes - Students will prepare effective action item follow-ups to
different types of meetings.
X. The Role of Meetings in the Communications Plan
Meetings
are one of the major elements of any project. Learn how to build a communications
plan that effectively utilizes meetings to communicate and satisfy the key
stakeholders on your project.
·
The Project Communications Plan - What is a project
communications plan and how does it support you in stakeholder management
·
Stakeholder Analysis - Determine how to manage different
types of stakeholders
·
Meeting with Key Stakeholders - The role of negotiation
and strategy in managing your stakeholders
Exercise: Evaluating Key
Stakeholders - Students will apply stakeholder analysis to a range of
stakeholders and determine the proper stakeholder management strategies for
each.
XI. Team Building through Meetings
Meetings
can be more than communications vehicles - they can be positive leadership
tools for building team cohesiveness. Learn how to take advantage of meetings
to reinforce you and your team members leadership roles
·
Opportunities for Team Building - Recognize when a
team-building moment occurs and how to take advantage of it
·
Leadership Roles: Yours and Theirs - All teams have
multiple leadership positions, both formal and informal; Use meetings to
identify and assign leadership positions
Exercise: Designing the Team
Building Plan - Students will identify possible leadership roles within their
own teams, and how to bring the leadership potential out in their team members.
Substitution & Cancellation Policy:
You may cancel or reschedule up to 21 days prior to the start date of the class at no penalty. For any cancellation or reschedule requests within 21 days, the full course tuition is still due and not eligible for refund. Any paid tuition will be credited towards a future class and must be used within 12 months.
*Partner delivered courses may be subject to different cancellation terms