Conduct Better Meetings

Are you struggling with getting your design team organized on a project? Or do you want to make your kick-off meetings more effective and productive? Well we’re here to help you.

In preparing for Kevin Hoffman’s full-day workshop, Leading Super Productive Meetings at the UI18 Conference in Boston on October 21, we gathered up a slew of free resources to share with you on this topic. But these resources are just the tip of the iceberg.

You’ll get the rest of the iceberg at Kevin’s workshop where he’ll provide helpful content, eye-opening hands-on exercises, and valuable one to one interactions. You’ll leave the workshop excited to schedule and conduct your next meeting. Go look at Kevin’s workshop description and you’ll see what we mean.

Here’s some reading about meetings

Perspectives over Power: Habits of Collaborative Team Meetings – Jared M. Spool
Jared discusses what makes meetings more effective than others.

What Good Teaching and Meetings Share – Kevin Hoffman
Kevin shares four simple, easy-to-remember guidelines about how to convey information.

Kick Ass Kick Off Meetings: Part 1 – Kevin Hoffman
Kevin explains the advance work that should take place prior to the kickoff meeting, and the type of questions you should ask your stakeholders.

Kick Ass Kickoff Meetings: Part 2 – Kevin Hoffman
In part 2, Kevin dives deep into a plethora of exercises to use in kickoff meetings including a design studio activity.

Listen to what the experts say about meetings

Leading Super Productive Meetings – Kevin Hoffman
Kevin Hoffman believes that the culture of an organization, not whether the team is remote or not, is the biggest factor in having productive meetings. Having a good set of principles really sets the tone for the collaborative process. Being able to quickly see options and constraints, and be able to collect feedback is instrumental to moving things forward.

Designing Stellar Meetings – Kevin Hoffman
An excerpt from Kevin’s UI17 talk, on six frameworks that help you design better meetings.

Leading Productive Meetings – Kevin Hoffman
Kevin has thought a lot about meetings. He views them as a design problem. There are dynamics that affect how successful a meeting can be. One thing Kevin has found successful is temporarily changing the organizational hierarchy. This allows everyone, leaders and their reports, to suggest ideas on an even plane. Inevitably this enhances the collaborative effort.

Facilitating Project Kickoffs – Kevin Hoffman
Kevin believes that kickoff meetings are the time to identify business strategy as well as company culture. It’s also important to assess any risks associated with the project in the kickoff meeting. Getting as many people involved at the onset of a project will help make the connection between project goals and the brand of the organization. It ensures everyone is on the same page.

Special Price for the UI18 Conference

By the way, if you decide to join us for the User Interface 18 Conference in Boston, October 21-23, 2013, use the promotion code BLOG and get $200 off the full conference registration.