Follow-up Meeting Prototype Insights
Yesterday I met with the West Village business owners group for a follow-up meeting. The purpose of this meeting was to continue working on the idea they had during our last meeting. I designed and tested a worksheet that guided them during the meeting.
Insights:
Activity 1: Idea Recap
What worked
Section 1 of the worksheet and bringing the google sheet I created for them with the tasks list was very helpful to guide the conversation, and figure it out what tasks should be kept or the ones people need extra help with. Leslie shared that she needed help finding a list of companies in the West Village, and Esther offered to help her.
They came up with the idea of creating a West Village Alliance during brainstorming and are excited to continue working together.
They made a plan to invite new people for the next meeting.
What didn’t work
Good news is that we had a new guest for this meeting, Zack Goldstein, who works at Hemp Garden. Having a new guest made me realize I need to include a prompt on the worksheet to remind participants to talk about their idea, the problem this idea is solving, and why they are doing this prior to reviewing their tasks.
The conversation was a bit out of focus at times. No one takes the lead because they are not aware of their roles. Before working together we need to assign roles to each other, for example, one person takes notes, another facilitates the talk, etc.
Participants feel discouraged because they think of impossible tasks to complete at the moment. They wanted to do a website together to offer discounts for customers. I guided them to think small, that the website can be their ultimate goal, but they can start with something simpler, like a paper coupon.
Activity 2: Time to Reflect
We didn’t have time to get through this part due to lack of time.
Iterations of Follow-up Meeting Framework:
Activity 1: Idea Recap
- Tell the problem, the idea and why you are pursuing this new idea for new guests.
Activity 2: Define your goals
- What are the desired results of the idea you are pursuing? (Solo writing for 5 minutes, then share for 10 minutes. Write each goal per post-it and group similar themes together).
Activity 3: Define your roles
- Define the roles between each other. (These roles may change in every meeting or stay the same for simplicity, quickly decide as a group).
The facilitator is responsible to lead the meeting by following the activities in the worksheet and keeping people on track by timing the activities.
The project manager is responsible to schedule the next meeting, managing schedule changes and creating a share a google folder for the participants.
The notetaker is responsible to take notes on the worksheet and update them on the google sheet.
The photographer is responsible to document your progress, take photos of post-its and worksheet and place them on the group’s google folder.
Activity 4: Review tasks
(Use a printout of your tasks on google sheet)
- Each participant talks about what they have done, what they need help with.
- Delete unrealistic tasks
- Brainstorm new tasks
- What do you think you can accomplish prior to our next meeting? (Participants should take on tasks based on their choice, time availability, skills or experience).
Sidebar: New ideas
- Write down any new ideas you had during this discussion.
Pro-tips/advice should be included in the worksheet, such as logistics and words of encouragement, “think big, but start small.”
Next steps:
- Revise the Follow-up meeting toolkit.
- Content strategy of instructions.
- Refine the design of all meeting materials.
