Make meetings engaging from the start! (Part 1)

Meetings are necessary for synchronous collaboration. However, employee feedback, reviews, and surveys often reveal that meetings are a painful part of work often resulting in dissatisfaction. Because meetings are necessary for bringing people together, it is critical to plan meetings that are effective. How a meeting begins is one important piece of this plan. Use the following ideas to get meetings started on a good note. 

Use icebreakers. For groups of people who have not met one another or worked together before, introductions and icebreakers can be a good way to kick off a meeting. There are a number of good ice breakers that can be used to kick off meeting introductions such as two truths and a lie, icebreaker bingo, would you rather, or many other icebreaker games. For more examples of ice breakers check here. 

Accomplishment round table. Having everyone volunteer accomplishments or exciting events that have taken place since a group’s last meeting is a good way to start off meetings on a positive foot. If this practice is regularly used for team meetings, members will often keep track of ideas to share and look forward to being together to share these news items. Meeting minutes document team accomplishments and can be used to summarize monthly or yearly wins among a team. 

One minute check-in. A one minute check- in gives everyone the opportunity to take one minute and summarize what has been happening since the past meeting. Often times one minute check-ins are used for Agile morning standup meetings or other quick team gatherings. If the one minute check-in needs more structure, teams can ask for individual wins and challenges, rose and thorn, successes and roadblocks, happies and crappies, strike and gutters, or the pit and peak since the last meeting.

Trivia slideshow. If a meeting host needs something to share on the screen while people are filing into a physical or virtual meeting room, an automated trivia slideshow is a fun way to keep the attention of the room. Slides can automatically scroll through various questions and answers related to history, organizational specifics, or any other fun trivia questions. For trivia examples check here.