Keys to Effective Meeting Facilitation Part 2: Effective Meeting Management Tools
Your most important role as a meeting facilitator is showing that you value participants’ time and insights. In last month’s post, I shared tips for setting helpful meeting ground rules. This month, I’m focusing on what happens once the meeting is underway.
Three simple tools help me run productive meetings where everyone can contribute. When using these tools, be sure to introduce them briefly at the start so everyone knows how to use them. Facilitation is much easier when the whole team helps you steer.
Three Tools for Productive Meetings
- Parking Lot
- Materials: An easel-sized sheet of paper on the wall labeled “Parking Lot”, sticky notes, and markers
- Purpose: Capture ideas that matter but aren’t relevant to the current topic
- Practice: When an off-topic idea comes up, the facilitator or a team member acknowledges it, writes it on a sticky note, and adds it to the Parking Lot. Before the meeting ends, revisit the Parking Lot and agree on how each item will be followed up.
- ELMO (Enough Let’s Move On)
- Materials: An Elmo stuffed toy or picture
- Purpose: Empower anyone in the room to keep the conversation moving
- Practice: When someone feels the discussion is going in circles, they grab Elmo and say, “ELMO!” The facilitator checks that others agree, then wraps up the discussion and moves to the next topic.
- Elephant in the Room
- Materials: An elephant stuffed toy or picture
- Purpose: Make it safe to raise what’s really on people’s minds
- Practice: When someone senses the team is avoiding an important concern, they grab the elephant and say what they truly think. This opens the door to a candid discussion that usually leads to better outcomes.
Putting Them Into Practice
Abe, Brenda, Carmen, David, Ellie, and Frank meet to discuss a new bonus structure for the company. Greta is their facilitator. After a long discussion, Abe reaches for the elephant: “We’re talking about bonuses, but what employees are really worried about is their insurance options and rising premiums.”
The group spends the next five minutes debating whether insurance is the bigger issue, until Carmen grabs the Elmo stuffy and says, “ELMO! Are we really prepared to talk about this today?” Everyone nods in agreement with Carmen.
Greta thanks Abe and Carmen, then says, “Employee concerns about insurance are important, but they’re not today’s focus. Let’s add them to the Parking Lot so we can address them properly, and we’ll decide on next steps at the end.”
The team drafts a new bonus structure. When they revisit the Parking Lot, they agree that David and Ellie will spend two weeks learning more about employees’ insurance preferences, and the team will reconvene to develop ideas.
Why These Tools Work
In 20+ years of facilitating, I’ve found that people love having Elmo and the Elephant in the Room. It almost seems like they’re looking for an excuse to hold them! These tools make meetings more efficient and, just as important, more fun. The Parking Lot ensures nothing important gets lost, so participants feel heard and valued. And when everyone has a way to steer the conversation, the meeting stops being something that happens to them and becomes something they own.
Michelle Adzhemyan is the Founder and Principal of Second Season, an advisory firm specializing in meeting facilitation, business process improvement, customer insights, and professional coaching. If you have questions for Michelle or want to bring her in to work with your organization, please email michelle@yoursecondseason.com or visit yoursecondseason.com.
