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Make clean agreements at the end of each meeting and capture them easily.

You’ve made it through most of the meeting - and you’ve had some truly powerful conversations. 

But how many times have you felt really clear and even excited about something in a meeting - only for that feeling to almost entirely ebb away by the time you’re back at your desk and into deep work again?

Question: how can you translate what’s been discussed in this meeting into tangible outcomes that everyone is completely clear on back at their desk - without endless note-taking? 

Let’s tackle getting clarity first.

You know that thing where someone senior says… we should really do X.

Everyone else is all, “oh yes, absolutely” but no one quite knows:

- Is this a decision?

- Do we mean do this now?

- Are you going to do it?

- Or are you politely telling us WE need to do it?!

So first, this is normal. Early group research(1) shows people often use a proposing style in meetings to float ideas and see if they fly. It feels more collaborative and less authoritarian. 

That’s great. But each time, this messy, non-threatening language needs cleaning up. 

There is nothing less collaborative than feeling completely unclear about what’s been agreed. So by all means propose. And then clean up.

(1) Bales, R. F., & Strodtbeck, F. L. (1951). Phases in group problem-solving. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46(4), 485–495.

Clean up

The first step is to make clean, clear agreements that we plan to keep.

You can do this as you go along and I like to separate out decisions from actions.

First decisions.

“How do you see us making that happen?

“Is that a decision?” 

“How should I capture that?”

“Who will own this?”

Then actions.

“What’s the first action on that?”

“What needs to happen by when?”

And also items to park for later:

“Shall we list that as something we want to come back to another time?”

And/or you can do it all at the end:

“What decisions have we made today?”

“What will happen next?”

“What do we want to come back to next time?”

And now capture

Now’s the moment to introduce the ‘capture canvas’. 

Here is my super simple version.

What have we decided? Log that.

What should go in a car park to be addressed next time / in another meeting? Log that.

What will happen next? Log that

Be as specific as possible - enough detail to preserve the ‘group brain’ you’ve developed during the meeting.

Keep it in a shared format - on a whiteboard, a shared document, spreadsheet - whatever. The point is, everyone can see it at the same time.

I do have a a more exciting capture canvas which is here:

You can see that this is a more complete capture with more detail - ready to send out. You could download my full version or develop your own that works for your team or project.

And finally share

The final step is to decide  where to share and store what you’ve captured.

Share the capture canvas where everyone involved can find it easily, any time.

Share it in such a way that you can easily find what was captured in any previous meeting capture.

Share it beyond those in the meeting itself. Make it freely visible to anyone who is affected or interested.

A simple one today! Would love to hear how you capture the full value from meetings.

Warmly,

Carrie

Dr Carrie Goucher
FewerFasterBolder
07769 708490

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References and further reading 

You can access the full FewerFasterBolder bibliography to source links to any references I use in any of my content and programmes. 

When you're ready, here are three ways I might be able to help

If you're looking to change your meetings, I'd recommend you and your team complete my e-course together

If your organisation needs some strategic 1:1 support to get started, you can book a slot to work with me 

Feel free to book a call with me to talk through your meeting culture (a half hour conversation is always free for FrictionFree subscribers)