Running Great Meetings and Workshops For Dummies

Running Great Meetings and Workshops For Dummies

by Julia Lindsay, Jessica Pryce-Jones
Released April 2014
Publisher(s): For Dummies
ISBN: 9781118770467

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Book description

Run engaging, productive group sessions with practical guidance and expert advice

Running Great Workshops & Meetings For Dummies delivers the tools managers need to facilitate engaging and rewarding group sessions. Written by two highly experienced leadership and coaching consultants, this book provides practical, hands-on instruction that can help you turn your meetings and training sessions around. Boost productivity by engaging attendees from the start, scheduling with time and energy levels in mind and keeping to a clear agenda. You'll learn the skills that will help you get the most out of every group session and discover which seemingly small details can have a huge impact on outcomes.

The current global recession has increased the emphasis organisations place on skills development and training throughout the world. While specialised service organisations exist, many companies lack the means to outsource their training needs or invest in specially trained staff to get the job done. Running Great Workshops & Meetings For Dummies presents a solution by providing clear group leadership instruction with immediate applications to employees in any department. Regardless of the type of meeting, training session or workshop you're running, this book provides the information you need.

  • Learn to align outcomes and objectives, establish an agenda and schedule and manage pre-work for attendees

  • Discover how to connect with the group, establish expectations and set ground rules

  • Find out how to set the pace, manage challenges and objections and troubleshoot issues

  • Effectively evaluate the session, ensure accountability and maintain momentum

    • Running Great Workshops & Meetings For Dummies provides practical advice you can put to work today.

    Table of contents

      1. Introduction
        1. About This Book
        2. Foolish Assumptions
        3. Icons Used in This Book
        4. Beyond the Book
        5. Where to Go from Here
      2. Part I: Getting Started with Meetings and Workshops
        1. Chapter 1: The Business Case for Better Meetings and Workshops
          1. Reviewing Why People Hate Meetings
            1. Being clear about what everyone dislikes
            2. Recognising how many meetings are unproductive
            3. Working out the incredible costs of poor meetings
            4. Understanding the ripple effect
            5. Knowing what everyone wants from their meetings
          2. Recognising When People Get a Lot from Their Workshops
            1. Developing a great design
            2. Delivering brilliantly
          3. Understanding Meetings and Workshops
            1. Recognising the similarities
            2. Understanding the differences
            3. One more thing
        2. Chapter 2: Planning Your Meeting
          1. Deciding Whether You Really Need a Meeting
          2. Reflecting on Your Objective
            1. Content-free versus content rich meetings
            2. Getting to a one-sentence objective
          3. Understanding the Function of an Agenda
            1. Writing a great agenda
            2. Getting your agenda items for a meeting
            3. Managing your sponsors and stakeholders
            4. Planning agenda items
            5. Recognising a poor agenda
          4. Structuring a Great Agenda
            1. Reviewing a good agenda
            2. Writing really simple agendas
          5. Planning For and Managing Personal Energy
          6. Double-Checking Your Preparation
        3. Chapter 3: Planning Your Workshop
          1. Understanding What Workshops Are All About
            1. Recognising when you might want to run a workshop
            2. Following your decision: Making a project plan
          2. Identifying Your Stakeholders
            1. Finding your key players
            2. Meeting your sponsor and any key players
          3. Defining Your Outcomes
            1. Checking your outcomes
            2. Reviewing some good and some bad outcomes
            3. Understanding why you spend so much time on outcomes
            4. Establishing the return on investment (ROI)
          4. Getting Ready to Do the Design
            1. Thinking it through
            2. Considering whether to stay on-site or go off-site
            3. Checking out the workshop room
          5. Doing Your Design
            1. Getting in the right frame of mind
            2. Working on and with your personal style
            3. Recognising all the different activities available
            4. Getting a rough design together
            5. Writing up your one-page design
            6. Breaking the ice
            7. Writing your detailed running order
            8. Getting sponsor sign-off
            9. Supporting materials
            10. Joining instructions
            11. Building your skills and getting good at group work: Next steps
        4. Chapter 4: Getting Ready for the Big Day
          1. Developing Your Essential Skills
            1. Asking good questions
            2. Listening to others and the overall conversation in play
            3. Recognising the levels of listening
            4. Observing others
          2. Understanding Groups
            1. Understanding group norms
            2. Communicating in a group
            3. Decision-making
            4. Surfacing issues and concerns
            5. Doing real work
            6. Assessing the gel factor
            7. Building self-awareness
          3. Practising What You’ll Say
            1. Rehearsing
            2. Visualising your session
      3. Part II: Running Great Group Sessions
        1. Chapter 5: Handling the Start of Your Session
          1. Managing Yourself
            1. Wearing the right clothes
            2. Checking your materials
            3. Eating the right food and drinking the right drink
            4. Getting there early
            5. Imagining yourself doing well
            6. Meeting and greeting everyone
          2. Kicking Off the Session
            1. Creating the atmosphere you want
            2. Outlining the agenda
            3. Housekeeping
            4. Clarifying expectations
            5. Allocating roles and responsibilities
            6. Setting up ground rules or a code of conduct
          3. Decision-Making
            1. Understanding the decision-making process
            2. Understanding your decision-making options
            3. Working with weighted decision-making
          4. Recognising Personalities in the Room
            1. Working with Bolton & Bolton’s Social Styles
            2. Working with Honey & Mumford’s Learning Styles
        2. Chapter 6: Continuing Your Meeting or Workshop
          1. Managing Process
            1. Checking in
            2. Signposting
            3. Summarising
            4. Linking
            5. Stating what’s been said: Paraphrasing
            6. Writing up key information on a flip chart
            7. Giving clear instructions
          2. Facilitating Group Discussions
            1. Introducing a discussion topic
            2. Getting input to a topic
            3. Allowing a conversation to move sideways
            4. Shutting up
            5. Dealing with an elephant in the room
            6. Dealing with comments skillfully
          3. Managing Process Problems
            1. Managing time
            2. Dealing with rabbit holes
            3. Using parking lots
            4. Opening old issues up, closing current ones down
            5. Managing energy
            6. Managing guests
            7. Dealing with unexpected situations
            8. Revisiting and reviewing expectations
          4. Reviewing Your Meetings and Workshops
            1. Reviewing a meeting
            2. Using online tools
            3. Reviewing a workshop
        3. Chapter 7: Dealing with the Tough Stuff: Troubleshooting
          1. Managing Typical Barriers to Success
          2. Knowing What to Do When It’s Not Working
            1. At the start of your session – when the group helps you
            2. At the start of your session – the group doesn’t help you
            3. During your session
          3. Dealing with Run-of-the-Mill Difficulties
          4. Handling Interruptions
            1. Phones
            2. Laptops and tablets
            3. To-ings and fro-ings
          5. Dealing with Difficult Behaviour
            1. Managing distorted thinking
            2. Dealing with difficult individuals
            3. Tactical seating
          6. Recognising Personal and Hidden Agendas
            1. Tuning in to personal agendas
            2. Tuning in to hidden agendas
            3. Dealing with personal and hidden agendas
            4. Dealing with recommendations
          7. Managing Conflict
            1. Recognising unhealthy and healthy conflict
            2. Getting the group to understand what’s happening
            3. Dealing with conflict: A process for a group
            4. Dealing with conflict: A process for individuals or factions
            5. The main take-away
        4. Chapter 8: Handling What Happens Next
          1. Reflecting On Your Meeting or Workshop
            1. How did it go at a big-picture level?
            2. What specifically should I keep doing?
            3. What specifically should I start doing?
          2. Writing Up Meeting Minutes
            1. Writing up simple minutes
            2. Writing up more formal minutes
            3. Using meeting software
          3. Calculating Your Return on Investment
            1. Evaluating your work
            2. Expressing ROI
          4. Reporting On and Closing Your Project
            1. Reports
            2. Review meetings
            3. Understanding project closure
            4. Reviewing your entire project
            5. Writing up your report
      4. Part III: Building Your Skills
        1. Chapter 9: Building Participants’ Knowledge and Practise
          1. Working with Case Studies
            1. Understanding what they are all about
            2. Knowing when to use the case study method
            3. Thinking through your purpose
            4. Using great cases
            5. Managing everyone’s preparation
            6. Working with the group
          2. Working with Role Play
            1. Believing that it’s the right thing to do
            2. Calling it what you will
            3. Developing realistic and appropriate role plays
            4. Setting the role play up for success
            5. Managing and explaining the process
            6. Understanding your role play options
            7. Reinforcing the standard
          3. Using Video
            1. Reflecting on personal performance
            2. Observing personal performance
            3. Reviewing footage
            4. Getting the right technology
            5. Having the right software
        2. Chapter 10: Running Focus Groups
          1. Knowing When to Use a Focus Group
          2. Thinking About What You Want to Achieve
            1. Side effects of a focus group
            2. Characteristics of a focus group
          3. Preparing for Your Focus Groups
            1. Defining a clear purpose statement
            2. Building your timeline
            3. Getting the right people in the room
            4. Generating the right questions
            5. Developing a script
            6. Recording information
            7. Preparing your kit
          4. Running a Focus Group
            1. Working with observers
            2. Pausing
            3. Checking your technology
          5. Writing It All Up
            1. Transcribing your material or writing up your notes
            2. Sorting and then analysing your data
            3. Interpreting your data
            4. Writing up your report
            5. Putting it all into action
            6. Recognising the disadvantages of focus groups
        3. Chapter 11: Taking It to the Next Level
          1. Brainstorming: Best Practise
            1. Recognising problems with brainstorming
            2. Brainstorming effectively
            3. Managing large group brainstorming
            4. Managing small group brainstorming
            5. Brainstorming alone
          2. Working with Some Common Group Tools
            1. 3Ws
            2. SWOT Analysis
            3. RACI analysis
            4. Force field analysis
            5. Ishikawa or fishbone diagram
            6. Decision trees
          3. Using Appreciative Inquiry
          4. Understanding Parallel Process
        4. Chapter 12: Running Remote or Virtual Meetings and Workshops
          1. Managing Remote Meetings
            1. Recognising when to have a remote meeting
            2. Inviting the right people
            3. Limiting the agenda
            4. Finding a good time
            5. Sending invitations and call details
            6. Sharing materials
            7. Managing your kit
            8. Getting going on time
            9. Reaffirming the ground rules
            10. Stating your goal
            11. Using a wingman when working remotely
            12. Keeping it relevant
            13. Handling PowerPoint
            14. Taking control when you can
            15. Being respectful of time
            16. Signposting
            17. Using ‘let’s’ to drive direction
            18. Thinking about your voice
            19. Asking questions for active participation
            20. Recording your meeting
            21. Saving all the information
            22. Reviewing your meetings
          2. Managing Hybrid Meetings
            1. Working with ten top best practises
          3. Reviewing Available Technology
          4. Understanding Remote and Virtual Workshops
            1. Embracing yet more technology
            2. Recognising the challenges
            3. Thinking about virtual learning
            4. Building your next steps
      5. Part IV: The Part of Tens
        1. Chapter 13: Ten Common Mistakes on the Day
          1. Failing to Set Up Group Work Properly
          2. Talking Too Much
          3. Ignoring Emotion
          4. Failing to Join the Dots
          5. Failing to Deal with a Difficult Person
          6. Failing to Recognise an Expert in the Room
          7. Failing to Change What You’re Doing
          8. Thinking about the Detail Rather Than the Big Picture
          9. Failing to Push a Group
          10. Being Too Dogmatic
        2. Chapter 14: Ten Things You Have to Do When the Pressure Is On
          1. Preparing Brilliantly
          2. Having a Plan to Move Away from It
          3. Creating Rapport
          4. Building Trust with the Group
          5. Taking Breaks
          6. Being Fair to Everyone
          7. Dealing with the Unacceptable
          8. Using Humour
          9. Noticing When the Group Is Going Off Track
          10. Holding It Together
      6. About the Authors
      7. Cheat Sheet
      8. More Dummies Products

    Product information

    • Title: Running Great Meetings and Workshops For Dummies
    • Author(s): Julia Lindsay, Jessica Pryce-Jones
    • Release date: April 2014
    • Publisher(s): For Dummies
    • ISBN: 9781118770467