How to use Sticky Notes or Post-It(®) Notes for Effective Meetings
If you’re wrestling with a complex topic in your meeting,
try using Sticky or Post-It® Notes. Pass them around to
participants. Have each person write his/her ideas,
thoughts, perceptions, or whatever is relevant to your
discussion on the Notes. One idea or comment per note sheet.
Have them write large enough the words can be read from a
distance.
Go quickly around the room and have each participant read
one item aloud. Do not allow discussion of each point.
Take the Note and put it on the flipchart or a wall or
somewhere they can be moved around easily. Continue this
until you have all Notes up front.
Organize the Ideas
Get a small volunteer team to, over a break, chunk the
Notes into categories that make sense to them. Typical
categories are: short-term or long-term, within existing
budget or needs more money, individual or department or
company-wide. Usually, there will be three or four plus an
“other” category for the ones that don’t fit easily into
any other grouping.
By looking at the Notes in front of the group, you can see
where to spend the group energy because there will usually
be one category chock full of Notes. You then have several
ways to move forward.
You can ask for volunteers to take the Notes in each
category and work out a solution that addresses it. Or you
can wait for the next meeting and plan to make a decision
at that time (when everyone has had time to mull over all
the Notes). You can have the full group prioritize the
categories. There are many ways to move forward. Invent
one that works for your topic and your participants.