<aside> 💡 We have many meetings in Acter for the sake of collective learning, decision making, and wellbeing. Meetings however should be managed with care otherwise they can quickly take over a lot of time in people’s calendars. Here follow some recommendations for how to do that.

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Recommendations

• Give people non-meeting days try and arrange meetings only on mondays, tuesdays and wednesdays.
• Consider the nature of the meeting; is it a brainstorming, feedback, planning, evaluation, partner etc. meeting? Use this to make it clear what you want to get out of the meeting, what people should have prepared beforehand, what you need to prepare beforehand, and to estimate how much time it will take.
• Keep meetings as short as possible to respect everyone's time.
• If you invite, you are the host (unless you arrange anything else), make an effort to make people feel welcome and comfortable → use check ins and check outs. Make sure that meeting time and agenda are clear as well as the purpose. If people need to prepare beforehand give them clear instructions on how.
• #Check out the IDOART framework when you plan a meeting. It is a good idea to have it in the meeting invitation and/or in the meeting (on a slide or poster).

IDOART

Intention – What is the intention, or purpose, of the meeting? In other words, why have it?

Desired Outcome(s) – What specific outcomes should be achieved by the end of the meeting?

Agenda – What activities will the group go through, in what order, to move toward the desired outcome?

Roles – What roles or responsibilities need to be in place for the meeting to run smoothly? Who is facilitating, and who is participating? Who is documenting, and who is keeping track of the time? What do you expect of the participants?

Rules – What guidelines will be in place during the meeting? These could relate to agreed group norms. They could also relate to the use of other apps, or practical rules related to learning space. Let the participants add rules to ensure that they have ownership of them.

Time – What is the expected time for the meeting, including breaks.