Meetings

TRIZ

to speak out the unspeakable.

let the team members do the following;

  1. note down what to do to archive the worst result imaginable
  2. go through list and pick activities currently going on which resemble any of the entries
  3. go through the identified activities and note down deployable countermeasures

guidelines:

  • make an example "how to build IT system no one wants to use"; solutions should be about stopping something
  • use 1-2-4-All for each step; help confused/laughing groups
  • begin with very unwanted result
  • note down activities to stop and number them
  • include people involved with stopping something by asking who else needs to be included

meetings to work out ideas

Walt-Disney method

to explore ideas.

judge from different perspectives:

  • the Dreamer as a visionary who produces ideas
  • the Realist as a maker who tries to implement the ideas
  • the Critic as a quality manager which asks critical questions
  • the Neutral as a neutral which enables the discussion

6 Thinking Hats

to explore ideas.

judge from directions:

  • Manager (blue) which has the big picture, defines the subject and goals and which hat is chosen netx
  • Informer (white) collects information and provides facts
  • Emotional (red) produces emotional gut feelings without justifications
  • Discernment (black) analyses practically and realistically
  • Optimistic response (yellow) looks for logically based benefits
  • Creativity (green) provokes and thinks outside the box

Using these hats, one can construct programs: A sequence of time-boxed discussions where a specific hat is chosen for each interval. This helps the group focus on aspects of the problem and avoids chaotic discussions.

allow to:

  • fully collect pro/con arguments (black/yellow) before discussion (black)
  • collect insight even from people not fond of an idea
  • "turn off" negativity (black) for a while to boost creativity (green)
  • include members usually wearing one type of hat to think as other hats

One may choose a sequence best suited for the problem under discussion: For example, in the conceptual phase of a project one, may choose the following sequence: Blue (to define what has to be answered), White (to share knowledge of team members), Green (to collect ideas) and then Blue (to elect an idea to focus on next).

Lean coffee

for unstructured meetings.

  1. Coordinator collects topics
  2. Topics are assigned a priority
  3. Topics are discussed in a timebox according to priority
  4. Results are noted down.

Kompleximeeting

to prepare a decision for a concrete problem.

Send out an invitation which clearly specifies the problem to be discussed (but no solutions/wishes). Interested parties accept the invitation (participation is not mandatory), and prepare. The meeting is for discussion only, decisions will be prepared (decision criteria, decision enabler), but not taken. Favour discussions over presentations.

Additional Tools

Liberating Structures which provides meeting templates to allow people to share ideas and talk openly about else not openly talked stuff.
Atlassian Team Playbook which contains tools for team meetings.