Seven Different Types of Meetings

If you’re a lover of ‘lists,’ this post of the seven different types of meetings will be catnip to you.

The list comes from a book that keeps finding is way to the top shelf of my bookcase:  How To Make Meetings Work, by Michael Doyle and David Straus.

From their list of the seven different types of meetings, I’ve included their tips – plus some of my own from experience – to consider prior to planning or facilitating your next meeting.

Here’s are the seven different types of meetings.

• Problem-Solving Meetings
• Decision-Making Meetings
• Planning Meetings
• Status Meetings
• Feedback or Follow-Up Meetings
• Leaderless Meetings
• Combination Meetings

How to Manage the Different Types of Meetings

Problem-Solving Meetings

• Make sure the problem is well-defined and agreed-to by key decision makers in advance of the meeting.
• Do you need a problem-solving methodology or tool in the meeting?  (For ex., a root cause analysis, fishbone diagram, etc.) Agree to it in advance, and make sure someone is fluent in the methodology, if not that the group has the necessary supplies (markers and paper, or a set-up for online collaboration).
• Distribute any key documents in advance, but at the same time, prioritise them if there’s a lot to digest prior to the meeting
• Invite the necessary people. You might want to speak to some of them in advance, just so there’s a base level of understanding.
• Incorporate plenty of time for discussion and debate.
• Engage a neutral facilitator depending upon the discussion and debate you expect.
• Develop and distribute an agenda so there’s transparency before the meeting starts.

Decision-Making Meetings

If it’s not obvious, the key decision maker must be involved, if not he/she should physically attend the meeting.  (Sometimes they can’t be in attendance. Jump below to Leaderless Meetings if this describes your situation.)

If you’re the one who wants to win the decision, make sure you know who are the …

• Coaches (the positive influencers to the decision maker) to determine how to win or leverage their support before the meeting.
• Critics (the negative or risk-averse influencers to the decision maker) to understand what about your proposal needs fixing, or if it’s possible to neutralise their opinion.
  • You may need to consider if politics is playing a role and how you can address it beforehand, if not directly with the Critic.
  • Never a bad idea to consider if someone may be a Bomb-Thrower, the person who holds back key information about the decision until it can be detonated in front of as many people as possible.
• Consider who must attend vs. those who are helpful but not necessary. Decision-making meetings work best with the minimum number of appropriate people.
• Make sure the attendees know how they will be impacted by decision, and that they have responsibility for the decision. At the same time, do not steam-roll.
• Don’t fake a decision-making meeting. Be honest.

As a rule of thumb for a decision-making meeting, it’s always best to seek out the opinions of the most influential Constructive Critic. This is the person who knows precisely what is wrong with your proposal and will suggest how to improve it so your recommendation wins their endorsement.

Remember, when good decision-makers want advice prior to the decision, they more often turn to the Constructive Critic. If you can get their input first, you might turn a Constructive Critic into a Coach.

Planning Meetings

These meetings are actually ‘future-oriented’ problem-solving meetings, so many of the points from above apply here too.

• Determine the scope of the planning: e.g., what objectives, how far, how creative?
• How far in the future are you planning: and is it too much, too little? You don’t want to spend valuable time planning a 12-month program when you can only plan 3 months, and vice versa.
• How much creativity can you use? Can things be done differently, or better, in this new plan? Or do you have to use the same process? (Be careful. If the previous plan didn’t work, you can’t expect the same planning process to produce a different result.)
• Consider the planning process: does the organisation have one it uses already?  (Don’t re-create the wheel.)
• Divide short-, medium- and long-term activities and decisions into appropriate modules in the agenda, and try not to mix (even in conversation).
• Invite less people for short-term meetings. Long-term meetings usually need more.

Status Meetings

Status meetings are the most mis-used style of meeting, primarily because the meeting organiser …

• Invites too many, or the wrong, people. (Do people really need to have someone read an update to them to understand its relevance?)
• Doesn’t prioritise. The meeting feels random and not in a considered order.
• Doesn’t distinguish between “relevant to know” and “nice to know.”

If you must conduct a status meeting:

• Prioritise the agenda items: put the most important elements first and focus on new developments, not old news.
• Invite only people who need to discuss the issue, not simply hear it first-hand.
• Plan for shorter meetings than longer.
• Be careful – if not limit – Q&A.
• Get a good secretary as status meetings frequently need more reporting than other types.

Feedback or Follow-Up Meetings

These meetings are typically held at the end of a project, from small to large, so that the department or team can examine the group’s success. More often than not, the meeting should not be run exclusively by the team leader. Feedback should be raised by all members of the group, with the leader acting as a facilitator, not the meeting’s sole voice.

• To make feedback meetings most successful, the focus should be on three equal parts:
  • What did we do well?  These are aspects to repeat during the next (similar) project. 
  • What didn’t work?  These are aspects that should be avoided next time.
  • What could we do better next time?  These are the aspects that could be improved next time.
  • For each question, make the responses are both precise and constructive. Reflecting the point above, the team should provide most of the answers. It shouldn’t be a judgment only from the department head or team leader. Otherwise, the team itself doesn’t learn.
• Many people will be talking, so think about conversation control. Do you need a facilitator? Or, small groups with someone to take notes?
• Find ways to allow everyone to contribute without adding unnecessary time. Again, small groups are ideal ways to get people to voice opinions, comments or feedback. (Perhaps you need a bunch of small group meetings?)
• A role of secretary may be particularly beneficial to take notes, then organise and distribute after the meeting.

Leaderless Meetings

• Get clarity on the meeting’s purpose.
• Get leader’s approval or direction in advance.
• Invite someone to lead so you have focus; otherwise, organic group dynamics will occur
• If none of the above are possible, postpone.

Combination Meetings

• Be clear on roles and responsibilities, especially as the meeting changes from one style or type to another.
• Be clear on decisions made at the end of each section, as well as the transitions. You don’t want to move backwards over discussed/agree-to territory.
• Plan breaks between particularly different styles of meetings to mentally clear the participant’s minds.
• Consider timing: do front-end sections of the agenda wear down participants for back-end sections?

Finally, two points to close.

What happens if you distribute a report – but no one reads it?

A few points here:

• Are the notes really necessary to read? Just because you’ve written the report doesn’t make it Cloudstreet.
• Don’t slow down a meeting because one person has not read the notes, or strongly suggest that a person review the notes because there won’t be time to discuss them at the meeting itself.
• Don’t hand Person X a 50-page report with only 24 hours to read and digest. Highlight the key sections, or prioritise the sections to be reviewed in the meeting.
• At worst, schedule time in your agenda to let someone read the document – but don’t do this too many times, otherwise you set a bad precedent.

Can I hold a strategy meeting and a brainstorm together?

I understand why people merge these two different types of meetings together, but I generally suggest you should not because you’ll probably have a productive strategy session but an ineffective brainstorm.

Essentially you are asking attendees to be analytical and critical during the first half of the meeting then, in the last half, to be creative and risk-taking for brainstorming. Unfortunately, most people aren’t able to switch their thinking 180 degrees,. If you must, plan something – an icebreaker, a game or an exercise – to get participants in the right mindset for the brainstorming.

What other different types of meetings do you know of, and how have you handled facilitating them?  Please feel free to add your thoughts and comments below.