Planning a meeting is several key steps. A highly skilled facilitator might be able to skip one or maybe two of these, but it will cause problems.

A rule-of-thumb is that this will take twice as long as the meeting itself to do well. An all day meeting that is 8 hours will take 16 to prepare. Don't delude yourself into thinking you'll do a good job and cut this short. You've seen too many crappy meetings.

Genesis

The need for a meeting will typically come from one of two places: You, or them.

Amazing.

You'll recognize the need for a meeting and want to get it scheduled. If this is your case you'll need to spend more time with getting stakeholder support in your Pre-Meeting Interviews.

If they suggest a meeting you'll want to spend more time Identifying the Purpose. This is ironic since it'll seem obvious, but what one person thinks is the solution rarely is the whole picture.

Interviews and Purpose

I find these two steps tend to happen in such close proximity that I might as well just treat them in one blob.

Spend some time Identifying the Purpose enough that you can speak about it with folks and then get started with your Pre-Meeting Interviews. Begin your interviews with stakeholders since they can make your meeting happen or prevent it entirely.

Your goal with interviewing stakeholders is to learn about what purpose makes sense from their perspective and to secure support. You can, of course, do Guerrilla Facilitation without their knowledge but this is very risky.

If you've done the interviews and purpose development correctly you should know who should attend, who shouldn't what support you have, and a good sense about what purpose folks will find useful.

Developing the Agenda

My preferred approach is Building an Agenda - The Spine but some folks like to simply do outlines or just whimsy it out of thin air or copy what they read somewhere. Either way you need to have a fairly detailed agenda for yourself that has the chance to accomplish the purpose of the meeting.

The agenda you create may not be the one you communicate out. While your creation isn't a secret, most people don't care so don't bore them. Also, last minute changes are easier with a more general or abstract agenda.

Please do send an agenda out, even if < 50% of folks read it, the ones who did will enter the room far more ready to participate.

Facilities and Supplies

Arrange whatever facilities you need and gather the materials you need.

Make sure you ask about:

• Outlets
• Internet
• Projectors
• Hanging things on walls
• Building/room access
• Who to call with issues day of
• Bathroom access

If it is important, have a back up. Especially for technology.

Communicate

I operate with a rule-of-three. That means I communicate the agenda and meeting information at least three times.

Folks are busy and even if you facilitate the best meetings ever, they might not pay attention to at least one of your methods of communication.

RSVP Hell

Alright, you need to know who is critical to your meeting and who isn't. If there are critical folks don't wait for a last-minute RSVP to find out. Pro-actively find out. Pro-actively find out their comfort with moving forward without them in case of emergency.

If you don't do this you could wind up in a room of folks looking awkwardly at each other wondering if you can start the meeting.

Refinement

Even if you follow my Building an Agenda - The Spine method, you'll need a lot more detail. Every single activity will need an understanding of:

• Transition time
• Explanation/Opening Time
• Materials needed
• Explanation language/script
• Activity timing
• Debrief activity and timing

The more you do this the easier each of these gets to do, but don't assume it'll work itself out. You've been in too many crappy meetings where it didn't work out to believe that.