Awesome Meetings: Decide on the meeting form ahead

Have you ever taken part in a brainstorming meeting that grinds to a halt under the weight of participants criticizing each other's ideas? If yes, then it's a clear sign the meeting had an unclear form.

When one prepares a meeting, a proper form needs to be selected and communicated. Otherwise, chaos will ensue, participants will be bored or lose focus, and it will end in a stressful and frustrating fiasco.

Let's look at some common meeting forms:

Brainstorming meeting is a fun and creative way to get out of the box and experiment a little. Through skillful facilitation, participants can open their minds and come up with surprising, sometimes zany ideas. During the green phase of the meeting, it's encouraged and welcome. Later on, when their creative muscle is tired, the facilitator can move to the red phase to consider ideas and choose some viable ones. You will have a chance to read more about this kind of meetings some other time!

Update meeting is a more formal way to keep participants involved in one topic on the same page, answer questions, and get their approval or confirm further involvement. It should be used for situations where many different questions could arise and a written update would be too complicated. It should be rather short and to the point, thanks to a clear agenda and minimal setup. You will have a chance to read more about update meetings some other time, too!

Decision meeting is the way to align participants, decide important aspects of the team or company operation, and address last-minute changes to the projects. To keep it focused, a clear agenda and minimal setup is required. Participants should focus on setting the plan into stone, rather than dive deeper or change direction. You will have a chance to read more about decision meetings some other time, too.

These three forms or rather intents for the meetings are the foundation blocks of effective and stress-free team communication. By applying smart facilitation techniques they can be a great tool in your team's productivity arsenal and greatly improve motivation and morale.

Cubitoo offers personalized coaching for startups and small companies focusing on running effective meetings and other communication-related aspects of running a successful company. Get in touch today