First Steps – Improving Your Meetings

by Jamie Flinchbaugh on September 20, 2010 · 2 comments

As we continued our First Steps video series, I remind you of our purpose. Many organizations apply lean to their collection processes. But many individuals don’t apply lean to their own work. Sometimes all we need is a small push, a first step. That’s what these videos are meant to demonstrate – a small step in a journey of a thousand steps.

In this video, we look at a small step you can take to improve any meetings you own or run.

We are often teaching After Action Reviews, a process to build reflection. It is nothing more than four questions:
1. What was supposed to happen?
2. What did happen and why?
3. What can we learn from that?
4. What will we do differently?

But even for a meeting, this can lead to significant time and action items. If you want to keep it simple and manageable, end your meetings with these 3 questions:
1. What’s 1 thing that we did well?
2. What’s 1 thing that we can improve?
3. What’s 1 thing that we will do differently?

A very small investment, made over and over, can lead to big gains.

 
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Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Management Improvement Carnival #110
September 22, 2010 at 8:16 am

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1 leansimulations September 23, 2010 at 11:24 pm

I applaud the effort to improve meetings, but I know that no one in any of our meetings is interested in pursuing any kind of reflection of how the meeting went. Most people are either eager to get the heck out of there as fast as possible, or to continue to talk about the actual subject matter of the meeting. On the other hand, perhaps it is worth asking at least how to improve the meeting for next time. One question might be enough!
Thanks!

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