Meetings
“Hey, my name is Ted and I teach facilitation. Good meetings are core and center because skilled facilitators can help the group be equals and move forward. Being heard and understood matters and creates a healthy and safe team culture.”
Facilitation sheet!
A sheet for facilitators – everything on one page!
Want to translate it? Contact [email protected] for an editable version.
See a real meeting
Opening round
ca. 5 min
Check-in round. Everyone shares how they are entering the meeting
(A good chance for people to get to know you better!)
ADMIN
ca. 1 min
Making sure the circle is ready for the meeting:
- Attendance (Who is here/absent? Roles filled?)
- Duration (How long is this meeting?)
- Minutes (Last meeting’s minutes ok?)
- Info (any announcements outside of the circle’s domain?)
- Next meeting (When are we meeting next? Or, who schedules?)
Consent to the agenda
ca. 1 min
- Understand the agenda proposal
- (Asking for reactions/additions if desired)
- Consent/integrate objections to the agenda proposal
Agenda items
- Reports →
e.g. reports from sub-circle or parent circle, reports on metrics - Explorations →
e.g giving feedback, brainstorming, generating proposals - Decisions ↓
e.g. policy decisions, selections processes, possibly significant operational decisions, policy reviews
Update backlog
ca. 2 min
Check-out
ca. 5 min
- content of the meeting
- interpersonal dynamics
- process
Meeting Posters
These posters are useful for meeting rooms to remember the basic patterns of Sociocratic meetings.
The transparency of a visible poster creates shared understanding and accountability to an agreed-upon format.
The resolution for these posters is right for printing on A4 (or letter) or slightly bigger.
If you’d like to print very large, use high resolution posters.
Oh, and you can say thank you with a little donation.
Facilitation classes online!
Integrating objections
1. Understand
2. Explore
3. Synthesize
Allow for clarifying questions
How do you relate to the objection?
Do you have ideas for amendments?
Possible strategies:
- modify the proposal
- shorten the term
- measure the concern (more info)
and go back to consent round
(full process)
Featured Resources on Meeting Facilitation
Sociocracy and virtual meetings – engaging, clear and fair
I’m in virtual meetings every day. Here is what I love about them!
How we decide matters
The way we come to a decision has a lot of influence on how people behave, how many voices can be heard, how they feel about the group they are a part of and what quality decision is going to be made. This video highlights the pros and cons of autocratic decision-making, voting, consensus and puts consent on the map as a better alternative.
Getting to consent
A presentation about what consent decision making is, how to get there and what to do if there is no consent.
Meeting clip: consent to agenda
Consenting to the agenda of a meeting before launching into the meeting
Meeting clip: circle report
Example of a quick report to a circle from its parent circle
Meeting clip: consent process
A consent process with an objection that gets resolved.
Meeting clip: exploring ideas
Gathering ideas in rounds
Meeting clip: updating the backlog
Example of how to give the backlog a quick update to capture new information before closing the meeting
Meeting clip: meeting evaluation
Example of a meeting evaluation: worked well, what could be improved?
Meeting clip: writing a proposal
Picture forming and proposal shaping and – almost – towards a decision. Also shows how to formally postpone a decision.
Meeting clip: ADMIN phase
A quick checklist to make sure the circle is ready to start a meeting
Meeting clip: opening round
An example of an opening round – personal and sweet
A full meeting clip!
An entire meeting including opening round, ADMIN, consent to agenda, several consent decisions, picture forming and picture forming, an election, updating the backlog and closing round.
A facilitator’s guide to keeping meetings on track
Stop overthinking. Start doing. Improve from there.
The sociocratic meeting format
The sociocratic meeting format
