Meeting facilitation tools to give quiet team members a voice

When it comes to effective team decision making and group brainstorming, it seems to be hindered by those who shout the loudest that get the most attention, even in the digital space. As an extrovert, my (wrong) approach has always been that introverts are just broken extroverts. They need to learn to speak up, think faster and just learn how to fit in with the way we get our teams to brainstorm and generate ideas.

Susan Cain’s book “Quiet” highlights that Western culture misunderstands and undervalues the traits and capabilities of introverts.  While extroverts recharge around other people and process their thoughts out loud introverts generally recharge on their own and process thoughts internally, sharing only when they have reached conclusions. Blend this into the traditional ways team generate ideas, brainstorm and make decisions, means that team decision making is skewed to those who speak the most, the loudest or the last.

This was really evident in one of the companies I led where in our management meetings, we would make decisions and regularly the day after the same team member would come back with an email expressing why they didn’t agree or had a different perspective. It was frustrating not just because they clearly weren’t behind the decision, but because they often had very valuable reasons that would have really helped the decision-making process – had they just given that input the day before when we were making the decision.

From Cain’s perspective, the team member in question was an introvert who processed his thoughts differently to the other members of the team. What we needed to do was find a different way to get his contribution into our brainstorming sessions. As Cain says “There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”

“Introverts are not broken extroverts”

Quiet, shy, introverted people are some of the best thinkers we have in our organisations and we need to find ways to help get their input. GroupMap is one of the meeting facilitation tools that helped me with this. The facilitation process can be customised to our needs – but most importantly it gave each individual their own thinking space – which can then be combined to reveal the group perspective in real time. As an online tool – it also means – people can be given time before the group session to add what they are thinking so it can be captured in that quiet place – rather than only by speaking up in a group meeting.

The bite is this. 40% of our workforce is actually considered to be introverts. That is a significant percentage of our team that we must recognize in order to truly get the results we want. For the collaborative leader, the skills needed to bring everyone into the conversation are key. Greater participation and engagement in the decision-making process can be improved by considering the way we capture and share ideas and solutions to problems.

How do I make my agile retrospective more effective?

Retrospectives are great to build a strong, productive team, but there can be a few challenges that impact on the quality of the process. We have a list of what stops an effective team retrospective.

1. DEEP DARK SECRETS
Getting people to be genuinely honest; to tell everyone what they really think is vitally important. Without this, you may as well continue on in a shroud of optimistic candour and hopeful bliss. The problem is that most rather not hurt the feelings of the colleagues directly.. or even the boss. Anonymity is often the key here.
2. TIME DRAINERS
Getting all the ideas down quickly, collated for review, comment and taking action is a manual process especially if you have a large team or one that is distributed. A meeting that takes too long, without purpose or lacks visibility can be a big downer to the process. Keep it quick, nimble and automated.
3. ACTION DEPRIVED
Ensuring you have synthesised the outcomes and people can vote on key focus areas and to take some real action makes sure the whole team moves forward. Don’t leave until you have a few take away action points.

TIPS FOR YOUR AGILE RETROSPECTIVE GROUPMAP

Make your retro anonymous, ask team members to work independently for a fixed period of time and then allow a chance for everyone to read the feedback and make comments. (Either verbally if the culture is right and everyone is present, or via the comments options against each idea). Allocated dot votes mean that each person gets their say in what is being taken into the next iteration. How many votes is really a matter of choice? Teams that do weekly retrospectives may allocate 5 dotes representing the working weeks whilst others limit it to 3 to find the top key items.
Have a record of your agile retrospective so it acts as a way to get participation and buy-in from the team. And you can see how each team member has participated.
Print off a screen capture and stick it on the office wall as a way to remind the team of what they selected.
If you want to save even more time, open up the map earlier to allow people to list down thoughts throughout the iteration or before the meeting itself.
Check out the full recipe here. Use one of the templates or create your own unique question set.Try it out with your next agile retrospective and let us know what you think.

How 150 people solved a wicked problem using an innovative audience response system.

The problem with large groups is that usually, you have to break up into smaller groups, scribble on sticky notes and butcher’s papers. The scribe never writes down what you said and the person who is the nominated speaker tends to say what they want.

Using polling may be a choice but that certainly won’t work for an innovation workshop and the chances of ideas being seen at the bottom of a discussion board or in a series of tweets are minimal.

So how do you get 150 brilliant minds to solve a wicked problem?

Fortunately, the committee of the Public Sector Innovation Conference realized that a little innovative technology for group brainstorming and consensus building was needed to get the most out of the workforce on the day. (See their review here)

Facilitated by Innovation Culture, the group was tasked to solve a wicked problem around 6 areas in the public sector. They had to come up with some ideas, ranked against urgency and impact, and present the findings to the panel of Director Generals on the same day. We’ve shared some tips and learning below.

GroupMap event workhsop software audience response system

Map 1
The practice mindmap – Gift ideas

Each team was asked to come up with ideas for presents that they would like to receive. As ideas of gifts floated around the room as suggestions, people who saw a fit that they wanted to would add it to their map. In under 5 minutes, we had a shopping list ranked in order of demand.

Map 2
The practice 2D chart – Rank the gifts

The top gifts were then ranked against cost versus the perceived level of “coolness” associated with that gift. This showed how the teams’ vote on ideas influenced the overall ranking of the gift in the group’s response.

Map 3
Creating a Focus Goal – How Might we

To stimulate some creative thinking, the question was asked about potential opportunities. The key words chosen to start the sentence was How Might We… Groups were asked to come up with ways to complete that sentence.

Map 4
Develop a SMART goal

Each Department was then asked to write a SMART goal for their area which would then be shared with others. There was no voting required, but it quickly generated a list of all goals and provided some practice for goal setting.

Map 5
Innovation perspectives – Idea generation around 6 perspectives

With some goals now developed, the group was asked to come up with ideas that could be implemented to meet some of these goals. Teams were asked to put their ideas against 6 different perspectives such as processes and systems, skills and knowledge, and collaboration and partnerships. Over 50 unique ideas were generated on the day, of which the top 6 were identified.

Map 6
Rank the top initiatives (2D Chart)

The top 6 ideas were then visually ranked by the group against the following criteria:

Level of value – what value will it provide to the government, community, and industry.
Level of impact – what level of impact will it have on the outcomes against the other ideas.

As an outcome, 3 clear standout initiatives were presented back to the panel. Arguments were presented as to the viability of the initiatives and the Panel used the level of support for each idea to gauge the energy of the room and what people wanted.

So here are our top 5 tips for effective large group brainstorming and creating audience engagement.

1. Have a practice map or two – it takes away the fear of having to get it right the first time and it makes for a great ice breaker if you have an interesting or fun topic. Gifts are great, but you can also try movie stars, books, food, and songs.

2. Follow brainstorming rules… at first. Allow for a number of ideas without judgment. Let one thought stimulate others and provide an anonymous free-flowing environment for ideas to come to life. Everyone has a voice, so give everyone the opportunity.

3. Allow the 4 D’s – Debate, deliberation, discussion, and deliberate dissent are all needed to then go through the ideas on their own merit. Group brainstorming has been said to be ineffective without the ability to cull and work through ideas. ( This means being able to reject suggestions or delete ideas in GroupMap!)

4.Pick technology that fits the audience – If you want a long detailed narrative, then use discussion boards. If you simply want a tally, then polling suits. But if you want innovative ideation and collaboration then make sure your technology is simple to use, encourages social engagement but without distraction, and shows what the group has built together, in real-time.

5.Manage GroupThink and the dominant participants – You know the problem. You’ve built a collaborative environment with shared ideas and consensus. You then get that one person who decides that their opinion or idea should supersede the entire group’s view. And, they will make a point of it. Thank them for their input, capture their feedback, and then move on graciously.

Public Sector Innovation Conference is an annual conference managed by the Institute of Public Administration in Australia and was jointly run by the Innovation Centre of WA. Its goal is to increase collaboration across government departments and to foster improved communication and innovative outcomes.

GroupMap is an online audience response tool that allows large group brainstorming and consensus buildings. Ideas are suggested in turn to manage information overload and are rotated for equal air time. We make things fast but fair. It is an effective tool for group ideation and decision-making for workshops, conferences, and classrooms.