Mastering the Art of Effective Meetings in Nonprofit Training and Development Projects
Have you ever left a meeting thinking that could have been an email?
As a nonprofit consultant working on training and leadership development projects, I lead a lot of meetings. And my goal is to make them an effective use of time, every time. Today, I want to share some ways you can make your meetings more effective. So no one leaves thinking it could have been an email.
You’re going to want to take notes during this one!
Listen to the episode or scroll down to read the blog post ↓
Key Points:
03:32 Identifying your ideal project team
05:33 Scheduling recurring meetings
08:31 Setting project milestone dates
10:13 Setting a meeting agenda
11:53 Making sure the right people are in the meeting
12:55 Email follow-up
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Mastering the Art of Effective Meetings in Nonprofit Training and Development Projects
Have you ever left a meeting thinking that could have been an email? Or why was I even invited to that meeting? Or what even just happened?
I know I've been there.
But I don't want that to be you. And I don't want that to be the people you invite to meetings when working on a training or leadership development project.
We spend a lot of time collaborating when we're working on training and leadership development offerings. So we do spend a lot of time in meetings.
And today, I want to share some ways you can make those meetings more effective. So no one leaves your meeting thinking it could have been an email.
As a nonprofit consultant working on training and leadership development projects, I lead a lot of meetings. And my goal is to make them an effective use of time, every time.
So I was super excited to get this feedback from a client recently.
Caroline said, “Working with Heather is a dream. She was always prepared for project meetings and updates. She delivered on her action items promptly and does not sacrifice quality. To my memory, Heather has never missed a deadline and is thoughtful about her project sequencing and pacing to ensure that her capacity expenditures are realistic. Heather is a valuable thought partner for every step in the learning design process and is an active participant in project meetings.”
This is good stuff. And now I'm ready to take what I've learned over the years, share that with you, and guide you as you create a very different meeting structure.
So, if you are not confident that you are using that meeting time effectively, I've put together six tips for you:
Make Sure the Right People are in the Course Design Meetings
Follow Up via Email about All Instructional Design Decisions and Next Steps
Now, as I go through these tips for leading more effective learning and development meetings, I want you to think about a current or a future project that you’re involved in, ideally one that's getting ready to kick off.
1) Identify the Ideal Learning and Development Project Team
The first tip is to take the time to identify the ideal project team. In my experience, the ideal project team is no larger than three to four people. Sometimes we end up with project teams that are smaller, and that's okay. But other times, we end up with project teams that are a lot larger which is not ideal.
I want us to be really specific and really clear on who actually needs to be on that project team.
In my experience, the right people to be on the project team are:
A subject matter expert (or two)
An instructional designer, or a leadership development specialist
A project manager.
And that's really it.
Other people may be part of the project, and you can bring them in as needed throughout the project. But the primary training and development project team, the people who are working to move that project forward, should not be a big team.
The bigger the team is, the harder it is to manage and the longer it takes to get things done.
Keep it small and keep it to the people who are essential to the project.
Now, again, we can engage other people as needed. But we want to keep the ideal primary project team around three to four people.
2) Schedule Recurring Course Design Meetings
Tip two is to schedule recurring meetings upfront. And you want to schedule these with the project team that you just identified.
Do this upfront during the training and development project kickoff. Get out calendars if you have to. This can certainly be done via email as well.
Find the day and the time that generally works for everyone on the team. Now, I recognize that things change and fluctuate from week to week, and you might have certain days when someone is traveling, or they're out of the office, or they have a conflict of some sort. And that's okay.
Just pick a day and time that generally works and set it up as a recurring meeting.
This takes the guesswork out of the meeting schedule. Everyone on the project team knows when you are meeting and how frequently you are meeting.
Now, for frequency, this varies a bit for me, but I generally recommend every other week, for 45 to 60 minutes.
The larger your group, the more time you will need.
The more complex the project, the more time you will need.
And you'll see why as we get to the next two tips.
3) Align Instructional Design Milestones with Meeting Dates
So now that you have recurring meeting dates, align your project milestones with these dates.
Let's say you're going to meet on Thursdays. So every Thursday or every other Thursday, you're going to meet with the project team. All of your deadlines should then be on Thursday. I will create something and send it to you for review on Thursday. Your feedback will be due the following Thursday.
Here’s an example. Your learning and development person will create something and send it to the subject matter expert or the rest of the project team for review on a Thursday. And then the following Thursday, their feedback will be due back to the learning and development person.
Here's why this works. On Thursday when your feedback is due, we can have a two-way or multi-way dialogue about that feedback. This provides the opportunity to discuss and clarify any feedback that you are receiving. You can then incorporate that feedback and send it back the next Thursday. The project team can then approve those changes at your next meeting. So you can see how the milestones are aligning with those Thursday meetings.
This leads me to my next tip.
4) Set an Agenda for Training and Development Project Meetings
Tip four is to set an agenda for the meeting to discuss or make decisions.
Can your meeting include updates? Sure, of course, but the bulk of your meeting should be for discussion or decision-making.
You can set your agenda so that you have time for this discussion.
So for example, I might introduce a storyboard to the subject matter expert in the meeting on Thursday, so I can capture their initial reactions and answer questions before the review process begins. Then at the next meeting, on Thursday, we can discuss the subject matter expert's more thorough feedback, because they've now had a week with that storyboard to review and think about what their feedback might be. The meeting then becomes a discussion of that feedback.
It suddenly becomes a more productive use of time. Everyone knows what the plan for the meeting is, and you know the project is going to stay on track.
At this point, your mind is probably racing with a few questions and doubts, if that’s the case I highly recommend episode 49: 7 Common Questions about Training and Development.
One of the questions I answer is, what are some of the greatest challenges for contemporary trainers? You are bound to face challenges in your project! If your question isn’t there, don’t hesitate to reach out. Here’s my LinkedIn if you’d like to connect and start a conversation.
Now, let’s get back to the blog post.
5) Make Sure the Right People are in the Course Design Meetings
Tip five, make sure the right people are in the meeting. I know we have a project team that will be in the meeting. You already know that they're the right people. But sometimes we do need to engage others.
Are there points in the project where you need feedback from people outside of your smaller project team?
If yes, when do you need that feedback? Map it out within the project. Do the people you need feedback from just need to attend a project team meeting and be part of that discussion, or do they need a separate meeting?
These are the things that you can consider. Who else needs to be involved? And what is the best way to involve them?
6) Follow Up via Email about All Instructional Design Decisions and Next Steps
This is the last tip: follow up via email and be specific. This is a big one for me.
Follow up after the meeting via email so that everyone can easily reference what decisions were made and what the next steps are.
You can be specific about tasks, who is responsible, and deadlines.
This is what a lot of meetings focus on, right? It's those updates of what's been done, what's coming up, who's doing it, and when is it going to be done. And a lot of that can simply be an email.
That discussion of updates in a meeting is what leaves us thinking the meeting was a waste of our time. Put it in the email and make it easy to read and easy to use. You can then reference that email in your meetings so the project team is expecting it and they're trained to use it.
Again, it's okay if you need a couple of updates in a meeting, but that meeting time is most productive when it's discussion-based or provides an opportunity for decisions to be made.
So think about your current meetings and how you currently run them. What are some of the things that you would want to move out of your meeting and into your follow-up email?
I personally love managing projects. It's something I've spent a lot of time on over the years and it's one of the things I love being able to bring to my clients. When we work together, you don't have to manage the project. My team and I collaborate with you to find the best approach and then take the management of that task from you. So you don't have to think about it. It's a benefit to working with me and my team.
But if we aren't working together, take a few minutes before your next project team meeting to think about how you can implement these tips and go to that meeting with an agenda item to discuss the changes. Your project team will thank you.
To hear the full conversation I had on the Learning for Good Podcast, scroll all the way up and tune into episode 56.
The Nonprofit Learning and Development Collective
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I know what it feels like to want someone to bounce ideas off of and to learn from, someone who really understands you and your work. Imagine if you could have a simple way to meet people in the field, ask questions, and share information.
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