Facilitating Inclusive
& Engaging Virtual Meetings

PAIR & SHARE

We’ll only have time to hear a few groups to share live, so share your meeting YAYs and NAYs with us directly, we’d love to hear them!

Preparing a Streamlined Agenda: Pre-Meeting

This is a great example of an agenda structure from the Harvard Business Review.
Click here for a PDF of a blank copy!

P.L.A.N: Scenario Practice

Scenario Practice Worksheet:

Scenario

Larson (they/them) is preparing to lead a bi-weekly call with a member group. They send the agenda in advance, indicating to attendees that they’ve determined three agenda items: 1) Memo overview, 2) Updates from Terry (an attendee), and 3) Group meeting ideas.

The meeting begins and Larson welcomes everyone before jumping into the agenda. They start with the memo overview, with Larson going through the memo in detail for about 25 minutes. Team members are largely passive and unresponsive, outside of one person typing into the chat with clarifying questions. When Larson pauses and says to the group “What do you think?”, one person chimes in with a clarifying question about the memo, and another with a question about what type of feedback Larson is seeking to gain. 

Next, Terry (he/him) begins his updates to the group. He shares his screen and shows a powerpoint. At multiple points during the presentation, the same attendee unmutes to provide their opinion. While other team members occasionally unmute to offer their perspectives as well, they are often cut off by this staff member. Once the presentation is over, Terry sends attendees into breakout rooms with guiding conversational questions. Team members return to the group with responses to Terry’s queries, but many responses miss the mark of what Terry was looking for given that most attendees’ work does not intersect with his, resulting in a disconnect.

There is no time to discuss the final agenda item (group meeting ideas) by the end of the call, which leaves attendees frustrated. Before the meeting concludes, Larson indicates that the next steps will be to discuss any group meeting ideas at the next call, and that everyone should email them if they have ideas. They indicate that they will decide on and send the agenda for the next meeting in the coming week, and that they took a few notes that they will send to the group as well.

How to Create an Effective Meeting P.L.A.N

 My biggest takeaway from today is…

We hope you had a wonderful time, we definitely did! Tell us about how we did, your favorite part, something that you are excited to implement, a question you were left with–we want to hear it all!