Use one of the scenarios in the previous exercise to practice facilitating and participating in a meeting. You may do this in person or online. Have each person assume the role of another participant. The dean or the sales associate will lead the meeting. Conduct a ten-minute meeting. Following the meeting, evaluate its effectiveness. Did you achieve your objective? Explain your answer.

Previous exercise

Working in groups of five, choose one of the following scenarios for the next three exercises. For the scenario you and your team members choose, prepare an email and detailed agenda to send to meeting participants. Plan ways to involve people in the meeting. Whether you’ll meet in person or online, how can you encourage everyone to participate? If you’ll meet online, what platform tools will you use?

Exchange emails and agendas with another group in class. Provide feedback on the purpose, clarity, tone, and level of detail.

Scenario 1 

Imagine that you are a dean at your college and you want to expand your student advisory board. Currently, four students are elected to the board every year, but you want to add four to increase diversity and get more perspectives. You also have two new initiatives coming up next year—an alumni weekend event and a student blog—and both require more students to help. Invite the current board members to a meeting to discuss and vote on the proposal.

Scenario 2 

Imagine that you work as a sales associate for your local Gap store. The work schedule is always set a month in advance, but you want more flexibility. You ask the four other sales associates in the store to meet with you so you can convince them to plan the schedule only one week in advance. You would need the store manager’s approval to do this, but you decide to get your coworkers on board first.