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The Meeting Redesign Kit · on paper

One meeting. One change. Check it after four.

In many meetings the turn goes to whoever claims it first. This kit changes how one recurring meeting hands out the floor, then checks after four meetings whether that helped. Nobody is being assessed. The meeting is.

Print it · free to use, copy and adapt · nothing to sign up for

Read the meeting first →

Not sure which meeting, or what is going wrong in it? The Meeting Test takes two minutes, and none of your answers are sent anywhere. Then come back.

1. Say what the meeting is for

Before changing who talks, decide what the hour is for. A meeting that exists to share news or keep people connected is not failing when it decides nothing, and it should not be judged as if it were a decision meeting. Pick one.

DecideSomething is chosen and someone owns it.
GenerateOptions or ideas nobody had alone.
InformEveryone leaves knowing the same thing.
ConnectThe people in it work better together.

The change you pick below should serve that purpose, not a general idea of a good meeting.

2. Pick one change

Each of these changes who the turn belongs to. None of them asks anyone to become more confident, and none of them is an accommodation for particular people. They change the room.

Change A

Send positions, not an agenda.

Ask each person for two or three written lines on the main item before the meeting. Everyone arrives having already taken a turn, and the discussion starts from what people think rather than from who speaks first.

Change B

Name the opener — and not the most senior person.

Decide in advance who opens each substantial item. It costs nothing, and it removes the moment where the floor usually goes to whoever grabs it.

Change C

Ask one person a question on purpose.

Not “any thoughts?”, which is an open floor with a question mark. “You have run this three times — what breaks first?” hands a specific person a specific floor. Rotate who you ask.

Change D

Give disagreement a slot.

A few minutes near the end where objections are the expected contribution. Disagreeing becomes the thing the meeting asked for, rather than the brave thing someone had to volunteer.

One, not four. A single change you keep is worth more than a redesign nobody remembers by the third week. If you are unsure, start with A: it needs no skill in the room.

3. Fill in the card

The meeting
What it is for
What I notice about the room
(the room, never a person)
The one change
Who does it
Starts on
Check on (four meetings later)
Contributors on a normal week, before
(a number, never names)

4. Tell the team, in under a minute

Something like this, in your own words:

“For the next four of these meetings we are going to try one thing: [the change]. It is about how the meeting hands out turns, not about anyone in it. After the fourth, we will look at whether it helped, and keep it, change it or drop it.”

5. Check after four meetings

  1. Did we actually keep doing it? If not, the change was too big for this meeting. Pick a smaller one; that is information, not failure.
  2. Did more people contribute? Count distinct contributors on a normal week and compare with the number on the card. A count, never a list of names.
  3. Did the meeting do its job better? Judge it against what you wrote in step 1: decisions made and owned, ideas that were not there before, information that landed, or a team that works better together.

Then decide: keep it, adjust it, or drop it and try another change.

What this cannot tell you

It changes one thing about one meeting and looks at what followed. That is an observation about your meeting, not proof of anything larger — and it does not need to be. It is the meeting you have to run.

It also cannot tell you why a particular person is quiet. Some reasons have nothing to do with how the floor is handed out: workload, a conflict, trust, or a manager in the room. If the change does not help, that is worth knowing too.

For the whole team’s meetings

This kit does one meeting, by yourself. The Two Rooms Workshop does a team’s whole meeting inventory in ninety minutes, with the team in the room, and redesigns one meeting live.

Free to copy, use and adapt: the kit, the card and the four changes. No permission needed.

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The Meeting Redesign Kit — grantedattention.com/meeting-kit · Clint Miller · free to use, copy and adapt

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