Introductions and chit chat (2 mins)

Quick opportunity for the team to build rapport and break the ice.

Expectations and purpose (2 mins)

• What are you looking to achieve in this meeting?
• What is required from attendees?

Discussion points (10 mins)

• Attendees to add any applicable discussion points here before the meeting.

Action items (3 min)

Each item should have a clear deliverable, date and person responsible. Which stakeholders will be affected and how will they be informed?

Required resources (1 mins)

• Include a plan to get these resources in place too.

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Add these meeting notes to your project management or meeting notes software and include in follow-up communications

Take stock of the work you performed

Take stock of the events and work you performed. Ashley recommends using Trello. Pull up the calendar view and have each team member make sure that all of the projects they worked on over the previous quarter are represented. It should take about 10 minutes to add all the items to the board.

Label with feelings

Once the team is on the same page and you have a view with all the projects, have everyone go through the ones that belong to them and label it with a feeling. You can start with 5 basic feelings and expand as needed: 

• Happy
• Sad
• Frustrated
• Proud
• Indifferent
  

Review for each team member

Take 15 minutes to go around the room or conference call and have each team member talk a little bit about 2-3 key projects and why they assigned them a certain feeling. It sounds kind of touchy feely, but it’s actually really helpful when you look back over a quarter and you can identify places where you should allocate time elsewhere.

Brainstorm action items

Last but not least, take the last 20 minutes of the meeting and spend some time brainstorming how you could allocate tasks a little differently to maximize positive sentiment across the team. If Tom is stressed out working on user-facing projects and doesn’t enjoy it, maybe there is another team member who is energized by similar projects. Managers should run this discussion, chew on the feedback, and think about action items going into the next quarter.

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Preparation

Attendees

• Invite stakeholders that are representatives from each discipline that is relevant (design, product, engineering, etc)
• Assign a facilitator that is neutral to act as the scribe and decision-maker

Space 

• Choose a spot that the team doesn’t regularly use for meetings. Be sure to have a big blank wall where you can place post-it notes from your brainstorming session

Time

• Consider one hour for a micro-session, three to four hours for a medium-sized discussion, and a full day for a larger project

To bring

(if this is a virtual meeting try to use online tools to mimic the post-it notes)

• Chart paper
• Post-it notes
• Dot stickers
• Pens

Brainstorming Session‍

Break the Ice

Tell me a story about… What did you want to be when you were younger... Where do you want to go on holiday and why? etc. 

To make sure your session remains focused, you should begin with a question. What specifically are you trying to solve?

1. How can we get people to perform X specific action?
2. What would lead to increased conversion on X client’s site?
3. How can we achieve X result?

Establish rules for the session

• No idea is stupid
• Postpone criticism. Feel free to ask clarification questions, but wait until the team decides whether to dig into that particular idea to provide any constructive feedback
• Don't focus on the solution in the early stages of the brainstorm — just focus on the problem
• You don’t need to raise your hand to speak, but make sure you’re not cutting anyone off
• No phones or laptops

Brainstorm

A great way to encourage everyone to speak up and to mitigate groupthink is to begin with silence: a solo brainstorm where each individual writes down all of their ideas on post-it notes. This should only last a few minutes. Be sure to use a timer to make sure you stay on track. As people are jotting down their ideas, the facilitator can begin to collect those post-its and start grouping them into themes and concepts onto the whiteboard or blank wall.

Voting

After the initial brainstorming session, it’s often useful to have small, circular colored stickers so that people can vote on their preferred ideas. Consider giving each person a maximum of two stickers (or “votes”) per brainstorming sprint, and dole them out accordingly.

Summarize

The facilitator should paraphrase and synthesize as many of the points as possible to make sure everyone is following.

Prioritize

When the top ideas have been voted upon, it’s time to decide how to take action. Here are two questions the group should determine before leaving the room:

• What is our deadline? This will vary greatly depending on the scope of the project. It could range from next week to the end of the year. Make sure you choose an ambitious, but achievable, timeframe
• Who will own this? It could be that the Project Manager will take ownership of each of these line items, but cross-collaboration between teams means there could be multiple stakeholders for each item

Emotional state

Discuss how the time between this meeting and your last one has been. What has excited, frustrated, engaged, or bored you (and the other meeting participants)? 

Relationships

Explore the most recent state of each other’s team relationships. What is your team struggling with? Where are they finding success?

Goals

Review your short and long-term goals. How are you progressing towards them? What short-term goals or interim milestones on long-term goals have you reached?

Feedback & Support

Check in to see how/if you can support the other meeting participants. How can we work together more effectively? How can I support you better?

Open Discussion & Wrap Up

Open discussion. Then, list and assign action items and schedule the next meeting.

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Preparation

Note any documents that need to be reviewed or activities that need to be completed before the workshop.

Problems

Focus on the customer’s experiences. Prioritize them in order of severity and choose one or two to focus on. Resist the desire to skip ahead to “fixing” until you have organized the problems you are going to solve.

Solutions Brainstorm

It’s time to figure out how to solve the problem, design the flow, or develop the plan.‍

Brainstorming tips:

• The more ideas the better!
• Don’t worry about how feasible an idea is just yet (Expensive ideas may lead to other ideas that fit your resources)
• Provide sketching materials. Encourage everyone to visualize the solution
• If the group is large, break into smaller, cross-disciplinary teams and then report ideas back to the group‍

Size & Prioritize

List your potential solutions in the following format --> Solution | Impact | Effort

• Rewrite all site copy | medium | medium
• Leverage API to automate enrollment | medium | large‍

Do we need to...

• Gather more evidence? (Can we understand the problem better?)
• Explore alternate solutions? (We loved these solutions but they’re too big. Let’s find a quicker fix to fit our timeline)
• Research solution size in more detail? (We need more information to understand which solution requires less effort)‍

Next Steps

• @name Task by DUE-DATE

Parking Lot

Store topics and ideas that are out of scope or beyond reach for this workshop.

Prior to the First Day

Are all relevant resources and materials prepared for the new hire's first day? This includes employee onboarding paperwork, tools they will need access to, and their workstation. Share any resources the new hire should consult before starting.

‍Company General Information

Share important company information with the new hire. This includes company values, culture, special achievements, and roadmaps for main objectives.‍

Company Life

Walk the newcomer through a typical week here. Share your insights into office life. Include information such as typical operating hours, where they can park, how they will access the building, and what the company dress code is.‍

Tour of the Office

Take the new employee on a tour around the office. Let them know where all the important and common areas (e.g., their workspace, bathroom, kitchen, etc.). ‍

Role Responsibilities

Review the new hire's role and responsibilities. Explain expectations, long-term goals, and how they fit into the company's vision. Note everything here to share with them later for easy reference.‍

Paperwork Review

Review all relevant paperwork like benefits packages. Share this information here so the employee can easily reference it.‍

Team Introduction

Introduce the new employee to key stakeholders in their role. Assign them a mentor who can assist them in getting up to speed.‍

Tools & Resources

Share all tools and accounts relevant to the new employee's role. List them here for easy reference.‍

Reading & Training Material

Is there any training material or required reading? List them here for easy reference. You can share this prior to the first day if appropriate.‍

Other Discussion Points

Did the new hire raise any interesting questions or noteworthy topics during the employee onboarding process? Note them here.‍

Main Takeaways

Create a list of takeaways for both the new hire and your team to help get them acclimated.‍

Next Steps

What's next? Clarify the agenda for the next few weeks as well as the first project for the new employee. Note this information here to share and make actionable.‍

Follow-Up

Should we schedule a follow-up meeting to check over paperwork and check in on progress?‍

Feedback

Plan to review the onboarding process over the next 60 days. Regularly check in with the new employee for their opinion. Note opportunities to improve it and make plans to implement them.

Call to Order

A [meeting type] meeting of [organization name] was held on [date] at [location]. It began at [time] and was presided over by [chairperson’s name], with [secretary’s name] as secretary.‍

Attendance 

Voting members

Guests

Members not in attendance

Approval of minutes

A motion to approve the minutes of the previous [date] meeting was made by [name] and seconded by [name].

Officer’s Reports

Other Reports

Main Motions

• Motion by [name] and seconded by [name] that [state the motion here]. The motion [carried or failed] with [#] in favor and [#] against.
  

Announcements

Adjournment

Call to Order

A [meeting type] meeting of [organization name] was held on [date] at [location]. It began at [time] and was presided over by [chairperson’s name], with [secretary’s name] as secretary.

Attendance 

Voting members

Guests

Members not in attendance

Approval of minutes

A motion to approve the minutes of the previous [date] meeting was made by [name] and seconded by [name].

Officer’s Reports

Other Reports

Main Motions

• Motion by [name] and seconded by [name] that [state the motion here]. The motion [carried or failed] with [#] in favor and [#] against.
  

Announcements

Adjournment

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Purpose/Goal

What is the purpose of this meeting?... e.g. Discuss agency performance and decide whether to renew for another year.

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Agenda

1. ‍

‍

Decisions

• ‍

‍

Next Steps

• ‍
  

Attendance

Present

Absent

Discussion Topics

Decisions / Motions

Action Items

Announcements

‍

General Information

Background about position and candidate.‍

Role Details

What key responsibilities, requirements, and skills do you want to verify during this job interview?‍

Relevant Experience

What previous roles, achievements, or anecdotes make this job candidate qualified for this role?‍

Relevant Qualifications / Training

What relevant degrees, diplomas, certifications, or training does the job applicant have?‍

Level of Preparation

How prepared was the applicant for the job interview? This is a great indicator of their interest level in the role.‍

Career Goals

Where does the job candidate see themselves in a few years? How does this role support their vision?‍

Attitude / Motivation

What did you think of the candidate's attitude towards the role? Is it conducive to succeeding in this position?‍

Communication / Listening Skills

How were the candidate's written and verbal communication skills? Did they listen? What percentage of time did they speak vs listen?‍

General Interest in Company / Role

From 1-5, rate the job candidate's interest in the company and role. Are they excited by the opportunity? Does it align with their career goals?‍

Cultural Fit

How would the candidate fit in with our culture? Are they someone our team would enjoy working with?‍

General Screening Questions

Include other general questions you'd like to ask as well as candidate responses here.‍

‍Recommendation

Do you recommend we proceed with this candidate?

Project overview

Include details of the project here with a link to any additional specification documents. Make sure you note who owns each part of the workload if relevant. This should be filled out in advance, as it sets the context for the rest of the meeting that follows.

Potential outcomes

Start off by thinking critically about the feature or product, laying out possible outcomes for how people might engage with whatever you’re working on. For example, let’s say you are adding a checklist to your product to increase activation. One possible outcome is that users don’t engage with the checklist at all!

• ‍

Reasons for outcome

Next up it's time to brainstorm the reasons that the previous outcome might occur. Maybe the checklist blends in with the other UI elements? Maybe people see it, but just don't want any guidance. It's important to go broad and generate lots of ideas, especially the negative ones.

• ‍
  

Scenario responses

Last but not least, ponder how you would respond to that outcome. If the checklist doesn't stand out among the other elements, would you add more color or make it bigger? Will you cut your losses and try another approach?

• ‍
  

Our Objective

Reiterate the objective of the project

Deadlines/Milestones

Include in the agenda high-level milestones

Project Update Roundtable

• Name

• Summarize 1-5 updates here in the agenda

• Name

• Summarize 1-5 updates here in the agenda
  

Roadblocks & Risks

• Where are you blocked? How can the team help?
  

Next Steps

• @name Task by DUE-DATE

Lighten the mood

Say hello and add a bit of joy to the meeting. Get everyone to share something fun they did recently, the best thing they ate over the weekend, etc. 

What problem are you trying to solve? 

Write this out. 

There are three main types of meeting goals:

1. Understanding: Make sure everyone feels like they know what’s going on, inside, and outside the team
2. Alignment: Make sure everyone on the team is aligned
3. Connection: Tighten the bonds between everyone on your team
   

Manager shares useful information

What’s important for the team to know about what’s happening inside and outside of the team?

• Upcoming changes to the team
• Updates on planning timelines etc 
  

Team members useful information

• Upcoming launches
• Process changes
• Learnings, etc
  

Next Steps 

• Highlight the main insights from the meeting and the upcoming priorities
• Clarify who's in charge of completing the next steps and expected completion dates

Name

• What did you do yesterday?
• What will you do today?
• Where are you blocked?
• Comfort Level — How close are we to hitting our goals?

Name

• What did you do yesterday?
• What will you do today?
• Where are you blocked?
• Comfort Level — How close are we to hitting our goals?

Location

For Town Halls, access the meeting via a video chat. This is a powerful way of creating a shared experience across the entire company, wherever they are. 

Department Updates

Town Halls are a great way to hear about what different teams and departments are working on by setting up demos, or sharing statistics with the entire company. In the absence of in person communication day today, it’s easy to run into the trap of different teams feeling siloed and out of the loop. It is also a good time for management and executives to reiterate the bigger picture in terms of company priorities.

Solidifying Company Culture

The first card read aloud is called Town Hall Announcements. The 10 items in the checklist on this card are akin to the “10 commandments” for the company. These state the core philosophies of the company and the company culture.  At the beginning of each Town Hall, someone reads these 10 principles out loud so that they are reiterated to the entire company. We always have a new hire read the list so that they become familiar with these philosophies. 

An Open Platform For The People

The goal of a Town Hall is to have a transparent company wide meeting with an open forum for any employee to be able to ask questions, voice concerns, celebrate great contributions, or update the company on their work.

Anyone can add a card to Announcements/Questions with the goal of addressing every single card on the list during the town hall. If you add a card to the list, add yourself to the card so that the meeting moderator can call on you when your card comes up.

Celebrate Successes

Town Hall meetings are not all business. The meetings are a rare opportunity when the entire team is together, which is especially novel in distributed companies. Take the time to build your employees up by establishing fun traditions and finding different ways to celebrate successes.

Easy Access Meeting Minutes

Of course, once a town hall is done this doesn’t mean it should be forgotten. Meeting Minutes from the Town Hall should be easily accessed by all employees after the meeting is over.‍

Engine Dashboard Overview

Have each functional team (sales, marketing, product, etc.) prepare and give an overview of how they're running.

Include:

• Goal’s and how they're tracking
• Update on sub-processes
• Key wins, losses, opportunities, concerns
• What we're focused on‍‍

‍Observations and Learnings

• Customer anecdotes 
• Feedback
• Other

‍CTAs / Asks

• What does each functional team need from the rest of the leadership team
• Follow-ups and actions (all actions need a directly responsible team member and a due date)

Meeting type

‍Check all that apply.

• Update
• Discussion
• Decision
  

Goal

‍‍Write the meeting goal here. (E.g. Discuss agency performance and decide whether to renew for another year.)

Agenda

• Item one
• Item two
• Item three
  

Next Steps

• @name task by Due-Date

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Purpose

Review top-level metrics, coordinate projects, and discuss pressing topics.

--

Agenda

Celebrate wins

• ‍

‍

Data to review

• ‍

‍

Updates Roundtable

1. Name
2. Name
3. Name

‍

Discussion Topics

• ‍

‍

--

Action Items

• ‍
  

Purpose

Capture learnings from [initiative] and identify what went wrong so we can get better

The Situation

Put all the details of what happened here. Only the facts. Make sure you answer who what where when why. Customer feedback is good to include if we have it. Include any and all mistakes and what went well. Break up into sections, like “research” “engineering” “customer feedback” “the feature” “marketing efforts” etc.

The results

What happened as a result of the situation? This could include how an initiative performed, what happened as a result of a bug, how a feature fared, etc. Support this section with data

What went wrong

All the details of what went wrong. Opinions are welcome here. Be fair to other people who were involved and let them add to the postmortem or give you context as needed. In the case of bugs, what we could have done better to prevent a problem can be included here as well.

What we can do better next time

Whatever we learned that will affect how we do things next go around, it goes here. This is the synthesis of everything we’ve figured out from doing the postmortem.

Action items

Any action items we have, and who owns each of them, plus dates if possible

Team Review

Share updates on overall progress, key metrics, and anecdotes to give your team an up-to-date understanding of current initiatives.‍

Individual Updates

Allow each team member to briefly share what they've been working on. This includes progress, obstacles, achievements, and any other information that would be valuable for the team.‍

Positive Highlights

Acknowledge big wins and milestones accomplished since the last weekly meeting. What valuable lessons were learned?‍

Roadblocks & Concerns

Have any issues or challenges come up since the last weekly meeting? Are there any particular problems a team member is stuck on? How can we help solve them?‍

New Information

Are there any new metrics, trends, customer feedback, or market influences we should be aware of? What about company announcements or industry news? Share any resources that would help the team understand these concepts better.‍

Other Important Notes

Summarize any other valuable information that was shared. It does not have to be directly related to the weekly meeting agenda.‍

Upcoming Priorities

What are the main priorities we should focus on for next week? How are we planning to approach these? What does success look like?‍

Main Takeaways

What were the main insights from this weekly meeting? Include key decisions made, progress reports, and any opportunities, issues, or concerns that should be shared with colleagues.‍

Share

List all key stakeholders not present and other departments that this information should be shared with.‍

Take Action

Clarify next steps for the entire team as well as each individual. Note who's completing them, and when they should be done by. You can assign these tasks from this template.

Say Hi

‍Make sure everyone's here and ask for a volunteer scribe.

Kickoff each meeting with a quick update from each team

If anyone else has any questions about something relating to one of the other teams, now is your chance to ask. (2 min per update)

• Marketing
• Design
• Data & Analytics
• Product Managers
• Community
• International

Go through the items that people added to the agenda

Ask whoever added the item to introduce it and lead that part of the conversation. 

Sum up next steps/actions

• Clarify what actions need to be taken and assign a responsible person for each task
• Choose someone else on the team to be meeting lead next time and add it to next week's agenda‍
  

Attendees‍

A working group is a defined set of people, usually coming from multiple teams or disciplines to fix a common business challenge.

Define the problem

Review the goal at the beginning of every meeting to remind group members of what they’re trying to achieve. Since the problems you’re tackling can be broad and fuzzy, having an explicit goal can also help you decide what is and isn’t the responsibility of the group.

Review past decisions

• Have you fixed the problem you set out to solve?
• Has the problem been solved another way?
• Has the company changed? Have its needs changed?
• Is the group still the most effective way to solve this problem?
  

Here are some questions to fill in to see how your solutions fit into your wider goal (check out how Etsy used this method to define "design excellence" for their team) 

• What motivates this work?
• What are the goals of this solution?
• What characteristics should the solution exhibit?
• Who should benefit from this solution?
• What informs this solution?
• When and where should this solution be used?
  

Set milestones

“In order to be effective, the group has to ship; in order to ship, milestones should be established from the beginning.” Without delivery dates in place, it is impossible to create an action plan that accurately reflects the speed in which you must be working to achieve your goals.