Skip to Main Content

Meeting Standards & Best Practices: Why Meeting Standards?

Greetings CSS! Hi All,

As Anne Shiell and Erin Guldbrandsen mentioned at the last CSS Quarterly Meeting, our remote experience committee has been hard at work looking at CSS meeting practices, particularly with an eye to improving the experience of off-site staff members.

Meeting planners, we hope you will embrace these recommendations as you plan your meeting; meeting participants, we hope you encourage your meeting planners to adopt these recommendations. Everyone, we also hope this opens a dialog among teams to openly discuss what is and is not working in your meetings.

Our group started by looking at feedback from past CSS meetings, conversations with CSS staff, and entries in the CSS Suggestion Box.

It quickly became clear that our growing center could benefit from revisiting how we handle meetings, to take meetings from this:

(© 2013 Scott Adams, Inc.)

to this:

.

(“best meeting ever! – Success Kid” via Meme Generator)

 

The feedback we got centered around four main themes:

  1. a need for better ways to engage all staff in meetings,

(“I was looking at pictures of food on my computer” via foreverpensive.tumblr.com)

 

  1. concerns about efficient use of meeting time

(someecard created by cmiller4au)

 

  1. confusion about the many differing meeting technologies and processes, and

(“I’m so confused right now” via Riffsy.com)

 

  1. frustration with breakdowns of communication or technology.

(“HELLO? Can you hear me? - Hello Adele” via Meme Generator)

 

In response to these concerns, we have spent the last several months assembling suggestions for improving the meeting experience for all attendees.

We’ve considered the needs of different types of meetings: large vs. small, local/remote hybrid vs. fully remote, and presentation vs. discussion.

Over the coming weeks, you’ll see the tips that resulted. Look for articles like these:

  1. The Ideal Meeting Invite
  2. Avoiding Audio Disasters
  3. How to Disengage an Attendee in Three Easy Steps

Look for the first tip next week, and feel free to reach out to us with feedback or suggestions as we go!

Anne, Lisa, Amber, and Erin

Remote Experience Working Group