Needing help with small group communication Agenda Discussion

Are Sample Agenda A and Sample Agenda B bell-curve agendas? One of them? Both? Explain?

Article: How and Why to Use a Meeting Agenda:

A meeting agenda helps you and your colleagues prepare for a meeting and guide yourselves through the items you need to discuss. Time spent in planning an agenda will likely save time for all meeting participants by providing a clear set of topics, objectives, and time frames. Some meetings may require more planning time than others. For example, a department-wide retreat will probably involve several hours of planning by several people, while a weekly staff meeting could be planned by one person in a shorter amount of time.

A sample agenda with commentary on each section is below:

Item	Desired Outcome	Priority	Time	Who	How
Project Updates	share info	high	50	Jack	go-around
Department Meeting Prep	feedback for editing proposal	high	20	Juanita	feedback to proposal
Vendor Fair	seeking volunteers!	medium	10	Lisa	share info and needs
2018 Team Priorities	get a shared view of our priorities and provide input for Li	high	40	Ravi	spend-a-dollar and discussion
International Students Fair	get list of ideas for preparing our participation	medium	10	Jack	brainstorm
Action Items	list actions, due date and person responsible	high	10	Jack	list items and get commitment

Parts of an Agenda:

Item

The item is easy; it's the content or topic to be considered. Make sure the right people are in the room for reaching the desired outcome for that item. Meeting participants should have the proper role for addressing the item (for example, the authority to make decisions if that is a desired outcome) and the item should justify their attention.

Desired outcome

A desired outcome is the result you would like for your item. Clarifying the desired outcome is perhaps the most important step in agenda planning. Defining your desired outcome helps you think about priority, time, who and how. Some examples of desired outcomes include "an agreement about X," "a decision about X," or "a list of X."

Priority

We have found that items bearing "low priority" never get discussed so all our items end up medium or high. We have no objective criteria for these ratings. When planning for the meeting, if the total time needed for high priority items exceeds the meeting length, the group should negotiate which items will be handled within the meeting time, or consider lengthening the meeting. Explain that any items withdrawn will get first priority at the next meeting, or find a means to address those items outside of the meeting.

Time

Projecting the time you need is easier if you've planned the "how" and "desired outcome" parts of the item. Without that planning, it's easy to underestimate how much time is needed to achieve a desired outcome. Even with planning, you may still underestimate in the beginning, so it may be helpful to increase your projected times by about 33% until you've got some skill at it. Your colleagues will likely be much more satisfied by participating in a lengthy, meaningful discussion than by taking part in a truncated conversation that doesn't allow for meaningful participation.

Who

This is the person who is responsible for seeing the item through to completion. In some cases that person may introduce the item while a colleague guides the discussion, so the person who is responsible for the topic can listen more fully to the discussion.

How

Our sample agenda lists several ways to handle a discussion:

go-around: simply taking turns to speak; generally going in a circle around the room or table

feedback: asking the group to respond to specific questions about an idea

share info and needs: giving information about the topic. In the example, Lisa is going to share information; she will describe a project, her needs for handling it, and ask for volunteers

spend-a-dollar and discussion:this method asks group members to assign any part of an imaginary "100 cents" amongst a number of ideas. In the example, the group will use spend-a-dollar to rank their team priorities. Spend-a-dollar is similar to a "straw poll" -- it helps a group see which ideas in a list are high priority, and how strongly members feel about those ideas. Discussion is a good follow-up step to refine the results into useful input.

brainstorm: when a group generates ideas freely and openly. An important element of brainstorming is that it does not involve the evaluation of ideas -- the goal is to generate as many ideas as possible

Article: How and Why to Use a Meeting Agenda

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