I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again, I’m just not a fan of meetings.  Some are necessary and arguably productive.  However, so many are not that my gut reaction when I hear someone wants to “meet” about something is to let out an involuntary sigh.  It’s nothing personal.

While you can’t control every meeting you attend (and maybe you should consider if you really need to be at THOSE meetings), there are some strategies you can use to increase your productivity and efficiency during the meetings you host.

Enter:  The Shark Bite Meeting technique

A Shark Bite Meeting is a great technique when trying to implement or improve a specific program.  A Shark Bite Meeting includes four phases:

1.  Topic Introduction:  Facilitator takes no more than 30 seconds to introduce the topic/program to be discussed.
2. Creative Attack:  Facilitator opens the discussion to the group for no more than 5 minutes of brainstorming regarding the topic/program.
3. Walking Away:  After five minutes has passed, the discussion closes.  At this point no decisions are made.  Everyone leaves the meeting to have time to continue thinking.
4. Trim the Fat:  The group meets again within a week to finalize the program idea and come to a consensus.

Read more about this technique at:  Shark Bite Meetings for Creative Program Planning