Have you been in a meeting intended to figure out how to get from where you or the organization are to where you want to be?  One way to achieve your objective is to do a Gap Analysis. Businesses often use this technique to compare actual performance with potential performance.  The analysis provides insight into areas that can be improved to achieve a goal.

What is a Gap Analysis? It’s a way to identify the obstacles preventing achievement of a desired goal.

What does it do? Gap Analysis encourages exploration of the gap, or obstacles or blocks that are in the way of your objective.  It forces a realistic look at where you are at present and helps identify the specific actions needed to be taken in order to be successful

How does it work? Gap Analysis creates alignment among team members through discussion of each obstacle because people begin to understand what steps are open to them and make decisions given that shared understanding.

Steps of Gap Analysis:

1.  Identify the desired objective. You might do some visioning on this or imagine magazine articles detailing the achievement or use any approach that captures a mental picture of where the group wants to be in future.  Post the picture or phrases on a flipchart and place it on the wall.

2.  Identify the present situation. Create a detailed picture of what exists today.  If possible, see what the elements identified in Step 1 look like today.  Again, write this on flipchart paper and post it on the wall.

3.  Focus on the gap between what is now and what is desired.  Identify the gaps/barriers.  Is anything missing that is necessary to bridge the two mental pictures?  (This can be done in small groups so that you move forward quickly.)

4.  If the group was broken into sub-groups, come together into one group and share the identified gaps/blocks/obstacles.  Again, write these up on a flipchart and post them.

5.  Have the group review all the gaps and reach a rough agreement on the key problem ingredients.

6.  Divide the group into smaller groups and have each sub-group focus on a gap and generate ideas to address it.

7.  Come back together as a single group and share recommendations and action plans.  Get new ideas from the full group on what they hear.

8.  Create an overall action plan that will move the group forward to addressing the gap between where they are now and where they want to be.

Patrick Lencioni, author of Death By Meeting, recommends adding drama and appreciating conflict in meetings.  How might you add drama and energy to your meetings?

He recommends learning from movies that are interactive and engaging:

1.  Set a “plot” at the beginning of the meeting.  Highlight a competitive threat.  Emphasize the danger of making a wrong decision.  Appeal to the larger mission. Describe the impact on all stakeholders.

2.  Give participants a reason to CARE – about the meeting and its consequences.

Further, Lencioni points out that disagreements are natural and resolving them is what makes meetings productive, engaging, and fun.

Reading this, ask yourself, “What, specifically, can I do to add energy to my meetings?“

Sometimes a group will resist being facilitated. Perhaps some people feel it is too formal while others prefer a loose, free-flowing discussion.

What can you do if your role is to facilitate this group?

1. Calmly and clearly state what a facilitator does (that is, what YOU will be doing) and does not do and how some attention paid to the process of the meeting prevents totally wasting time on random discussion.

2. Accept the input and facilitate from a seat at the table rather than from the front of the room. Offer ideas for how to process discussion.

3. Take on related roles: timekeeper, scribe, summarizer. Be low-key.

Do not allow the group to flounder. They will not thank you for doing nothing even though you are following their request. Instead, offer to step in if they begin to be unproductive. Have a few suggestions ready for how the group can move forward in the remaining time. If they are successful without a full facilitator, congratulate them and consider that this group might be good at managing itself.  Ask if they achieved their objectives for the meeting.  Suggest if they think a topic requires stronger process management, they might consider a facilitator for that meeting.

In addition to the situations described in the prior blog post, here are more scenarios that call for a facilitator.

• If full participation is important (everyone needs to be engaged and focused)
• When internal politics are strong
• When neutrality and objectivity are crucial
• If bringing in someone “from the outside” will lend importance to the topic
• If you’re leaving meetings frustrated
• When group commitment is essential

Having a meeting facilitator can free you and your team from the worry of staying focused, note-taking, and time-keeping.  You will be able to listen more intently and keep your attention on the task at hand.

For your next important meeting, consider bringing in a professional facilitator or having a skilled, unbiased staff member fill that role.

Facilitation is a skill that focuses on upgrading the process of meetings in order to improve the quality of the meeting results. A trained and experienced facilitator understands meeting dynamics and brings to bear techniques to ensure the meeting leads to the desired outcome. She or he is responsible for harnessing the group’s energy and setting it to work on a given task.

It makes sense to have staff trained as facilitators.  And sometimes it makes sense to bring in someone from outside the organization.  A professional facilitator can help a team or organization move forward productively, whether on a single topic or a strategic plan. Typical instances where a facilitator can make a big difference include:

• If you are scheduling a strategic planning “retreat” to decide where your
company, organization or department is going over the next three to five years

• If you want innovative thinking on a recurring task

• If critical meetings go on and on without a decision

• When you have lots of ideas but can’t get them to solution stage

I’ll have more on this topic in the next post.

At the start of any meeting, make sure everyone is clear about the purpose of the meeting by:

• Reviewing the agenda
• Giving a brief background on why the meeting was called, especially if a special meeting
• Letting people know how they can add value to the session by giving ideas, sharing information, etc.
• Share with participants how this meeting or agenda item matters to them, i.e., “We need ideas for this situation because the final decision will affect how we process claims.”
• Distribute relevant materials early so they can absorb the information and participate fully.

Brainstorming is a technique for getting a lot of ideas quickly. Usually, the goal is to get creative ideas as well as logical, obvious ones.  When your goal is to generate ideas that are not bound by narrow restrictions of time, budgets, what we’ve always done, etc., brainstorming is a great approach.

Some guidelines to make the brainstorming more productive:

• Let ideas flow freely: it is easy to get bogged down in the details of one interesting idea.  Instead. keep generating ideas.
  

• Go for quantity, not quality: if you expect perfect ideas, you will not get anything new.  Better to go for a lot of ideas that contain innovative elements and can be made better with additional work.
  

• Build on others’ ideas: let others’ ideas trigger new ones for you. Or even generate ideas that improve on the interesting but flawed idea that someone else offered.
  

• Reserve judgment or evaluation for later: don’t look for the problems with new ideas.  Instead, use those ideas to stimulate additional ones from the group and from yourself.
  

• Have fun: people enjoy fresh, new ideas and this means they will have fun if truly innovative thoughts and ideas are being shared.  So make sure the environment is playful and safe for creativity and your meeting participants will have a good time!

As a facilitator or meeting chairperson, it is useful to have some exercises on hand that will help the group be more creative.  I have shared some exercises in other entries in this blog.  But you can invent your own once you get the hang of it!  Share them here in the comments section!  Or send them to me and I will feature them in a future blog posting.

As always, the first step in determining how to lay out a meeting room is to consider your meeting objective.  When your goal is to generate creative thinking and lots of new ideas, the layout of the room has a big impact.

Beyond gaining fresh ideas, consider what else needs to happen in the meeting.  Do you have to use computers?  Do you need flipcharts?  A projector and display screen?  What about electrical outlets?  Are there enough and in the right place?

A “living room style” room with chairs or couches tends to be most appropriate for a brainstorming session where a free flow of ideas is encouraged.  Perhaps the living room in a hotel suite is the best option in this case.  If you do not have the luxury of using a layout such as that, then place tables in a shallow u-shape so that the facilitator can write the ideas on flipcharts that can be seen by everyone.  Also everyone can see and listen easily to one another.

Place the refreshment table inside the room and in the back or on the side.  This way people can go help themselves without leaving the room.  You know what leaving the room can become:  a time to make or take a call, check in with the office, run into a friend…before you know it, 20 minutes have passed.  And that individual has missed many ideas and lost the flow and energy of the meeting.

Have notepads and pens available for people to use when they get an idea.  It is easy to forget even the most exciting idea when you listen to five other people speak before you get your chance.  Encourage attendees to write down their ideas so they can listen fully to those from other people.  Notepads also can be useful when you conduct creativity exercises.

Have comfortable chairs.

If using a flipchart, write large enough (with a dark marker) that people in the back can read the words easily.

Have natural light if at all possible.  A windowless room can make participants feel “closed in.”  You don’t want them to feel that way when you are looking for creative, breakthrough ideas!

When possible, ensure that there are few if any sound intrusions.  There’s nothing like loud machinery or meetings next door to distract and irritate participants.

If you have found any other ways to arrange a room for creativity, please share them in the comments section below!

Diversity Adds Creativity to Your Brainstorming

When your meeting is convened to generate creative ideas to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity, success is more likely when you have participants representing diverse styles, backgrounds, knowledge, ideas.  Why?  Because everyone brings their whole self to meetings. Thus, they bring fresh perspectives and “new eyes” on the task which may lead to insights and then new ideas.

As Albert Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Consider these questions:  Does your organization welcome diversity?  Or does it attempt to make everyone have the same values and approaches?

As much as possible, structure your meetings to welcome and embrace diverse viewpoints and perspectives.  Find ways to  build respect into your group norms so that all kinds of ideas are considered. In a business context, you are more likely to gain a competitive advantage from an innovative idea and innovation comes from the clash and creativity of ideas and perceptions.

This means respectful listening to other group members, open-minded consideration of seemingly contradictory ideas and attitudes, and withholding instant evaluation of ideas.

One of the most common complaints I hear from clients is that meetings run too long.  Often, this is because agendas are too full or discussions wander.  You can handle these problems in the meeting (and you’ll see other posts in this blog about this also).  Here are five strategies to shorten your meetings:

1.  Determine the average salary of people in the room and then project the amount of money being spent during the meeting on a laptop or projector somewhere in the room.  People become aware of the cost of going off-topic or unproductive discussion and manage their input to be more concise and focused.

2.  Eliminate distractions. At the start of meetings, ask attendees to turn off phones, laptops, etc. during the meeting.  Hold them to this.  If someone is sneaking a peek at their email, point out the behavior.  Consider confiscating the devices at the start of the meeting or when people ignore the guideline.  Close the blinds on the windows facing into the larger office.  Turn off the phone in the conference room.

3.  Set clear guidelines for behavior. Include items such as “share airtime” to prevent people from dominating conversation.  Another item might be “stay focused on the agenda item” and when people  wander away from that topic, point out that the guideline is to keep on-topic.

4.  Make the planned time shorter than usual.  Remind attendees that this meeting will be fast and efficient and they will be done sooner if they operate within the time limit.

5.  Have fewer agenda items. Rather than cram everything into one meeting, hold two shorter meetings a week apart and address only one or three topics instead of five or six.

Try these out and let me know how they work for you (in the comments section below).  Also, feel free to share additional methods you have used to shorten your meetings.