Facilitating fun and effective meetings books

Here are a few ideas to make your meetings exciting, educational, and effective. Over the years i have taken many workshops and trainings, received helpful feedback, and read many insightful books all to help me hone my facilitation skills. Your meeting engagement will not be the same again. When you take the time to plan properly and put lots of effort into facilitating a good meeting, you are almost guaranteed to be successful. Proper meeting facilitation will guide the group from idea sharing to the development of an effective decision. Facilitation techniques for leading an effective meeting. Meetings can either be opportunities to share ideas, discuss challenges and define action plans, or they can end up as unproductive time wasters. Beyond the fact that theyre inexpensive ways to get. Meeting time is also an opportunity to have fun, plan trips, organize family outings and service projects, and appreciate each other.

Leading effective meetings, teams, and work groups in districts and schools. Effective leaders know the true art of facilitation. An easytouse quick reference to facilitation, its packed with useful information, tips, and techniques. Gloria has a special passion for facilitating and mentoring facilitators. All the resources you need to run effective board meetings. To keep people engaged, have a different team member keep the minutes of the meeting. Introduction to planning and facilitating effective meetings. Next, plan the attendee list and send out email invitations that include all of the necessary information. Meetings are great opportunities to innovate, solve problems and make decisions with the collective intelligence of a group. On the other hand, meetings are also a frequent source of frustration and many people simply prefer to avoid meetings to protect their productive working hours. The essentials for leading great meetings and creating group synergy hunter, dale on.

How to run effective business meetings that produce results tips to plan, lead, and manage a meeting. We love hearing from you, so let us know your best tip. Sharing a story can be a great way to explain some of the many benefits of having family meetings. Facilitation is both an art and a science and a skill that can be developed through practice and reflection. How to use humor when facilitating a meeting find a. What a great resource for people who are getting into facilitation. When working to reach consensus we bring together different ideas and try to find a proposal that is agreeable to everyone. Staff meetings, project meetings, task force meetings, planning and coordinating meetings. Read the entire course to see how to achieve the requisite function in any meetings. A committee can be one of the most productive tools that an association has for goal achievement. This lesson overviews how to meet the challenge of preparing for and.

Your group probably has a fixed day and time to meet but the location might change. Facilitator s guide to participatory decisionmaking by sam kaner, the skilled facilitator. The facilitator guides a discussion of the topics laid out in the meeting agenda, with the purpose of moving the team towards a common goal. Reaching consensus takes more time, but will usually gain stronger buyin from the group at large. Facilitation is about taking responsibility for making meetings as easy and effective as possible. Does your team need to work on their facilitation and meetings skills. Meetings training materials, activities, course modules. It is a blueprint for how to have your meetings work, defined as, meetings that achieve the results you want to achieve, in the meeting and afterwards. People dont take the meeting seriouslymeetings are too longpeople wander off topicno followthrough postmeetingpeople arent candidimportant information is missingmeetings never get better7 deadly sins of meetings. Unfortunately, managers are often the major contributors to meeting process dysfunction. Anyone can learn and use facilitation skills to increase leadership effectiveness and help teams become more productive. You will find 4 categories of activities in the toolkit.

When teachers share information with each other and work together in the best interest of their students, good things happen. From design sprints to scrum meetings and group workshops these facilitation tools come handy in any situation. We look forward to a long, healthy, productive working relationship with honig ideaguides. In fact, they can be more valuable than traditional facetoface 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. Our own essential meeting facilitation toolkit by sessionlab consists of 12 group facilitation techniques and tools specifically selected for facilitating effective meetings. Over the past decade, theres been a growing recognition that effective meetings. Wellplanned and facilitated meetings sustain participants energy and allow them to contribute their best thinking to the planning endeavor. Consensus is about participation and equalising power. Beware this talk will make you rethink your entire life and work life changer duration. Many grassroots groups use consensus decision making rather than voting in their meetings.

Facilitating an effective meeting can be a satisfying challenge, if you are prepared and familiar with facilitation techniques. A skilled facilitator fosters collaboration and teamwork and manages conflict among team members. A very good book on one of the most difficult arts that of drawing together a group through facilitation. The virtual meetings book by michael wilkinson and richard smith.

The leading effective meetings method has become a standard operating procedure for our organization which we will train on a continuous basis. The essentials for leading great meetings and creating group synergy. Give people different tasks in the meeting, rotated regularly. A short guide to facilitating meetings seeds for change. The book is well organized, and breaks down the art and science if facilitation in group dynamics. Whether facilitating or attending the meeting, you need to involve each attendee in the. Find out how to effectively incorporate humor and fun into meetings for a happier and more productive environment. Committees are also indispensable to the work of an association, enabling work to get done in the most efficient manner. She is an active member in the sacramento professional facilitators group and. By definition, facilitating means, to make easier or less. Best practices for facilitating effective board meetings. People spend so much time in business meetings that turning meetings into results is a priority for your business.

When planning your session and while youre in the room facilitating, you need to find ways for the entire group to be on an equal playing field. Insanely productive meetings mean that theres less of them last year we spent only 6,380 combined hours at meetings. At scoro, were all about time management, and we put a lot of effort into having effective meetings. This book is for people who need to lead effective meetings, in any context. Because family meetings work toward building consensus, everyone has a voice and a role in solving problems. When challenges occur, iep meetings can quickly go from being positive and cooperative to being contentious and stressful. Essential facilitation skills for an effective facilitator. Preparing for group meetings well takes you a third of the way toward ensuring their productivity, and followup takes care of another third. This guide explores the concept of facilitation and how it can help in creating positive and successful meetings. In the end, that means productive and effective meetings. Fortunately, most iep meetings run smoothly and result in programs that are effective and have the full support of both educators and family members.

Finding ways for everyone in the group to participate is a key component to getting the group to buy in and own the processinclusivity is the name of the game. These courses are specifically designed for improving facilitation and meeting skills. Download our unique training course modules, activities and games that bring fun and discussion into the training classroom. Sadly, a small percentage of these meetings are challenging. The middle third of the process is to run the meetings efficiently. This twoday course will give you handson experience with the latest proven techniques for designing and facilitating effective, focused meetings. However, remember that consensus is not the ultimate goal. Virtual meetings dont have to be seen as a waste of time.

Another good introduction to facilitation that has one of my favorite quotes defining facilitation. The role of the facilitator offers an opportunity to dance with life on the edge of the sword, to be present and aware, to be with and for people in a way that cuts through to what enhances and facilitates life. An effective decision for the problem at hand is the most important issue. Instructional coaching, organization, teaching tips, time management pop quiz time. Workplace flexibility creates a need for better skills in facilitating virtual meetings and hybrid meetings where some participants are in the room, and others participate are using audioonly or video conferencing platforms. It requires care, vigilance, flexibility, resilience, humility, and humor. How to lead an effective meeting and get the results you. Introduction to planning and facilitating effective meetings about this publication introduction to planning and facilitating effective meetings is the sixth in a series of guides developed to bring information to coastal managers about the use of social science tools in their field of work. The worst thing about many of these meetings is that they are poorly run and waste valuable time. These morning movement sessions provide fun ways to be healthy and active such as dancing, exercising and running. Effective group facilitation is an artful dance requiring rigorous discipline. Very useful if you want to get beyond the technology and run meetings that actually achieve something in a virtual setting.

Free online course on effective meeting facilitation. Run meetings that are fair to introverts, women, and remote workers renee cullinan to be effective, meeting ground rules should be based on research around best practices in the workplace. The first of two books that cover how to run effective meetings online. Even with a fixed day, a reminder a few days ahead can be useful, and knowing where the meeting is to be is very useful. The line between effective and overthetop is thin, so make sure to practice strategic delivery. To facilitate a meeting, start by nailing down details like the purpose, major discussion topics, start and end times, location, and how the attendees should prepare for the meeting. Start them the right way and people will look forward to your meetings. Top 11 skills of an effective facilitator the design gym.