The last Three of Six principles for successful Reverse-Flow meetings
4. The meeting should have a format and a facilitator
A simple format gently followed can have a positive effect on the productivity of any meeting. The key is to select a person with everyone’s agreement, to facilitate the meeting.
The facilitator is the leader in helping the group stay on task. While holding to the agenda is critical, the real give a facilitator can make is in insuring the contribution of members follows the discussion direction. Meetings become quickly unproductive when participants begin to take side trips to their favorite topic, when in fact that topic is not up for discussion.
5. Individual team members should own improvement points.
Accountability is more than a buzzword. It is a major key to success. An improvement meeting should result in clear decisions or objectives. The question “Just what did we accomplish at the meeting? “should be easily and clearly answerable.
After the prioritization of issues, participants should have to own the issue. With ownership employees accept the responsibility for ensuring that everyone follows the process.
At subsequent meetings, these “owners” can report on what was accomplished and when they would like to an updated status report.
6. Accountability should be clearly understood and publicly noted.
The rules of the game must be clearly understood and followed, regardless of how you structure your improvement program. Business Navigators recommends the use of a Course Correction Communication Board to accomplish this goal.
Pinned to this 4’ x 5’ board are task cards. On each task card is the name of the issue owner with an indication of the current status of the issue. Indicate whether something changed for the better or someone is still working on it. Also, post the rules of the improvement program along with meeting times and locations.
Those in the company who are interested in what is happening have only to go the public board.
Next: How to Prioritize your employees’ ideas
