Stop & Think: Team Meetings

Team Meetings

When teams work together they often have a variety of meetings to stay in sync and to make progress on their joint tasks. Try these strategies to supercharge your meetings:

• Preparing for the meeting
• During the meeting
• Follow-up after the meeting

Preparing for the meeting

Follow the three steps in the “Plan a meeting” sub-section to design an effective team session.

Use the Whole Brain® Team Agenda to clarify the meeting's purpose, identify discussion points, and establish meeting-specific roles. 

Identifying these aspects ahead of the meeting allows you to integrate Whole Brain® Thinking into productive and engaging conversations that utilize your team’s cognitive diversity.

During the meeting

Use the Actions & Decisions Log to track any follow-up action decided on during your meeting. Take note of specific next steps, including what needs to be done, who will do it, when it will be completed, and why it matters.

As you facilitate the session, remember the Whole Brain® Thinking prompts in the “Lead a meeting” sub-section.

If you sense your team’s energy and focus fading, try the Whole Brain® Booster activities in the “Lead a meeting” sub-section. Each activity takes as little as 15 minutes to complete as a team and is designed to leverage and activate your team’s thinking preferences.

Follow-up after the meeting

If your meeting is recurring, block five minutes at the end to recap what happened using the questions listed in the “Debrief a meeting” sub-section. Use the outcome of that discussion to improve future meetings.

Circulate the Action and Decisions Log and meeting minutes to make sure everyone is up to speed on what you discussed and decided during the meeting.