10-9 Planning for a Successful Meeting

As outlined in the last section, planning is key to facilitating a successful meeting. This section will highlight the three critical areas for planning: 1) purpose and outcome, 2)meeting agenda and process, and 3) logistics.

1) Purpose and Outcome

To be effective, the group must have a clear sense not only of its overall purpose but also of the purpose of each specific meeting and how it ties into the group’s mission overall.

For example, a group organized to create funding recommendations for non-roadway funding (the mission of the collaborative group) may have a specific meeting to educate themselves about the current funding needs (meeting purpose).

In addition, it is helpful to define what outcome the group is seeking to achieve. This outcome gives the group a focus and helps them know how it will measure its success at the end.

For example,for the meeting mentioned above, the meeting outcome could be stated, “By the end of the meeting, the group will have a shared understanding about the funding revenue that needs to be generated.”

2) Agenda and Process

Once the purpose and outcomes have been defined, it is helpful to begin to plan how the group will reach that outcome.

Below is a basic agenda structure for most meetings

To reach the outcome, the facilitator breaks the task into pieces on the agenda and figures out the best method to do each piece. It can be helpful to determine whether you are wanting the group to broaden their thinking and generate ideas and perspectives (divergent) or for the group to start clustering these ideas and coming to agreement (convergent). Below are some examples as to how to match the right process for each task.

This form can be a useful guide in developing an agenda to distribute to the group.

3) Logistics

Many a good meeting has been ruined because the room was inadequate, the equipment didn’t work, or the participants did not receive notice. Attending to the logistics is a critical component of the facilitator’s work in helping the group succeed.

Much has been written about the usefulness of checklists. So we offer you the following checklists to help manage logistics for a successful meeting.

Planning and preparation BEFORE a meeting enables a facilitator the structure needed to be adaptable and responsive to the needs of the group DURING a meeting.  If we were going forward with more homework, we would now have you plan your first meeting of the group.  It would be the convening or “kick-off” meeting, and would need to include developing or confirming agreement on the operating principles or working agreements, which would be one of the desired outcomes.  It might also include the beginning of the Education Step, described in later posts.

What might be some other desired outcomes for this first meeting?