Ideas
Ideas for better meetings
19 practical guides you can use in your next meeting, without our help: gridcards, Scales of Agreement, ORID, meeting objectives and more. Written by Sean Blair from more than twenty years of facilitation.
Better meetings
Method
How to write meeting objectives, and replace your agenda
Turn every agenda item into an objective with an active verb. The verbs to use, the ones to avoid, and why objectives choose the process.
Method
The mighty power of the humble gridcard
A gridcard is just an A6 card and a fat pen. Used well it democratises meetings, saves time, captures every view and creates a record. Here is how.
Method
What is focused conversation? The ORID method explained
ORID moves a group from facts to feelings to meaning to decisions. How the focused conversation method works, with example questions for each stage.
Decisions
Scales of Agreement: a team decision-making tool
"So, we're all agreed?" Scales of Agreement tests real consensus in minutes. The eight positions, how to run it, and five decision rules to choose from.
Meetings
Why so many meetings waste time, and the 10-minute fix
Most people daydream in meetings, and managers say half their meeting time is wasted. Why, and how one team cut a 90-minute catch-up to 10 minutes.
The craft of facilitation
Facilitation
What is facilitation? Six lessons I would teach my younger self
Six lessons from more than twenty years of facilitating meetings and workshops, plus four more tips.
Presence
Facilitator presence: when to be big and when to be invisible
Facilitators have enormous influence on a group. Knowing when not to intervene matters as much as commanding the room.
Facilitation
10 ways to (politely) get someone to shut up
Ten tested ways for facilitators and chairs to handle the person who won't stop talking, plus the MOMO and SUMO gridcards to download.
Facilitation
Nine conditions for brilliant meetings, workshops and events
What makes the best meetings, workshops and events? Nine conditions, from personal responsibility and clear objectives to people learning something new.
Facilitation
A clean language ice breaker for workshops
One clean question, "When you are at your best in workshops, you are like what?", gives a group a participatory start and reveals the conditions it needs.
Facilitation
The IAF facilitator competencies, and becoming certified
The International Association of Facilitators' six core competencies, what IAF certification involves, and why it matters when you hire a facilitator.
Facilitation
What is dialogue? David Bohm's proposal, and how we use it
David Bohm's idea of dialogue: suspending judgement so a group can see how it thinks. What it is, what it is not, and how dialogue helps teams listen.
Strategy and visual thinking
Visual thinking
What is strategic illustration?
Strategic illustration turns a vision, roadmap or strategy into a picture people remember. What it is, how it differs from graphic recording, and a case.
Strategy
A short (and personal) history of leading change
From Kotter's eight steps to living vision and emergent strategy: how ideas about leading change have changed, and six principles that last.
Strategy
Word-strategy cards for strategy conversations
Twenty word cards (context, purpose, vision, reality, risk, culture and more) to prioritise a strategy conversation and direct a team's attention.
LEGO® Serious Play®, online and conferences
Online
How to be a good online meeting participant
Simple habits that make Zoom, Teams and other video meetings work: audio, mute discipline, speaking for an international room and arriving early.
Conferences
How to use song and music as an energiser at a congress
How 300 delegates at the MOVE Congress in Rome sang together each morning, and left with their own recorded anthem. Why it worked, and how to plan one.
LEGO® Serious Play®
LEGO® Serious Play®: a remarkably adult way of working
What LEGO Serious Play is, the beliefs behind it, its four benefits, and what happens in a session, from individual models to a shared system model.
Online
Live polling in meetings: why we use Slido
Live polls and anonymous questions make meetings and conferences more participative. Ten reasons we use Slido, and how to get the best from it.
More from Sean
Insights at Serious Outcomes
Articles on systems thinking, strategy and leadership, as featured in Training Magazine, TrainingZone and Singapore Business Review.
Read the latest →
Books
Four books by Sean Blair
SERIOUSWORK, Mastering the LEGO® Serious Play® Method, ONLINE and The Systems Synergy.
See the books →
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