Running Better Meetings - How to Facilitate at W3C
This page contains a video recording of the presentation made during the session from Breakouts Day 2024, along with a transcript. Video captions and transcript were automatically generated and may not properly translate the speaker's speech. Please use GitHub to suggest corrections.
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Transcript
Reid, Wendy: welcome to today's session. Especially welcome to Simone's cat, who's very cute
… welcome to the session on running better meetings. How to facilitate that
… computer. There we go
… so on the agenda for today. I have focused on 3 main things, effective meeting facilitation which includes things like setting the stage tooling and fostering discussion.
… introducing the role, the code of conduct and the role of the facilitator within the code of conduct.
… And then the last portion is talking about handling difficult situations, including de-escalation.
… Just to preface this version of the training. This has been adapted and shortened from the original training sessions. The first session is online, and it was linked in the description for the session, and it can be viewed at any time. There is a second half to the session to the original one. Which will be run again, probably in the next couple of months. But this version is meant to be focused on people that are interested in running things like breakout sessions or getting into sharing but maybe not have the role already.
… So let's talk first about effective meeting facilitation.
… The first thing to think about when you're defining. Effectiveness is is the group having constructive conversations about the work with a variety of participants? Is there a diversity of membership and opinions being expressed.
… and do participants feel welcome, heard, and supported when we are thinking about effectiveness, and especially when something like diversity, diversity can mean a number of things to a number of different people. But essentially, you want a variety of people from different backgrounds, from different geographies, potentially, even from different industries.
… To give feedback on your work, because the more voices that you have the better the work will be
… when you're working with a new group or in a starting up a session for the first time. It's really important to set the stage a breakout session or a new group is an opportunity to establish patterns of work.
… work, modes and procedures. Break breakouts in particular, can soft, sometimes spawn. You know, community groups, or even one day working groups
… and setting the stage from the very start, is a good way to kind of build. A report with your with people, and this can be done in any number of ways, and sometimes you may want to experiment, because there are different things that are going to work for your group, or for a session.
… Long term.
… The usual way to start is introductions and welcoming new participants in a breakout session. It may or may not be appropriate to do introductions depending on how much time you have.
… But if you're starting a new group, or you know you have an existing group where people are joining. You want new participants and participants to UN know each other and know who each other are
… depending on the format. This might be better to happen over email. But it can also happen during a meeting whatever people are more comfortable with and when you're starting a new group, or when you're working with a group. You want things like a welcome email.
… and new member details. So you should be giving them the key details of what you're doing. You know what's gonna happen in this call, or something like a call schedule connection details that kind of thing
… when you're starting something for the first time, and this applies to breakouts and to groups. You want to define goals. This could be defined if you're in a group setting. This could be defined by something like a charter document or scope.
… But when you're doing a breakout session it could be the intended outcome of your breakout session. Maybe you're introducing a new technology or a new concept for a technology. And by the end of the session you're hoping to get something out of it. It helps a lot when you're running a conversation to be able to give that upfront, because then it helps frame people's minds as they go ahead.
… There's a bunch of different ways. The groups
… or sessions can track the goals using minuting or using for longer term projects. Maybe things like github but it can be helpful to have a shareable goal or project tracker to keep chairs on top of their schedules
… and also help new members understand what's being worked on
… when we talk about how we communicate. W3C uses a variety of different technologies.
… And there's many, many tools out there, and many platforms that groups and even breakout sessions can use to communicate. For the most part, you'll find that uses Irc Internet relay chat, and email for most of its communication. But there are alternatives out there.
… and you want to use the option that's going to work best for your group or for the session that you're running it. You know. It might be using a crypt to take minutes. It could be using a Google Doc.
… But you wanna make sure that you're valuing the importance of working in the open and having accessible tools and records, especially when it comes to newer tools or tools that have not been tested. The accessibility of those tools is really important, because a lot of platforms may not be accessible to all of your participants.
… Much of the role of being a facilitator is managing the meeting. It's ensuring that everybody's participating equally, that the discussion is flowing and that you're maintaining a positive work environment.
… establishing things like scribing responsibilities, managing the queue. And who's gonna handle documentation like agendas and minutes or
… ha! Who's gonna speak? And when is something that you want to share like, especially maybe not so much in a breakout session. But when you're sharing a group, it's good to have multiple chairs or multiple facilitators available, because it'll help with.
… you know, workload and distributing their responsibility.
… I've included here some sharing resources, and I'll share those later as well.
… So a little. This is a very quick session about tools, tips, and tricks.
… The goal for every group is to achieve consensus and open and communication. But
… we can use tools to facilitate that.
… This is a question that I asked in a previous version of the session, where we actually ended up having a discussion about this, because there's lots of things out there that many chairs and facilitators do to make sharing and running meetings more manageable.
… and we had a bit of a discussion about different tools and different utilities that are out there to make these things possible. Some working groups use things like agenda builders. Some use email templates. Some use github and
… it's it was fun to discuss what has worked and what hasn't
… overall. The biggest. I think successes were using Github really effectively, especially now that Github projects works really well.
… Myself and many other chairs love to use email templates. It just makes things a lot faster when you're sending emails out to the group.
… And I do know a couple of groups that use things like agenda builders to build their weekly agendas when you're doing something more like a breakout session. it might be he might be more focused on like keeping all of the documentation in a single place. So maybe it's using a Google Doc or crypt pad
… to keep everything in one location for people to access
… fostering debate.
… So the one of the most important parts about being a facilitator in the standard space is that you want to foster discussion and debate. It's part of the standards process.
… And many people when you're running a session running a group, either participants or observers, they're gonna have ideas, and they're having thoughts that they want to share.
… When you're a facilitator, your role is to create space and ensure those ideas are shared, discussed, and handled appropriately. Your job is to have an open mind, regardless of your own opinions.
… Your role in all of this is to help determine the appropriateness of a topic, or whether your group can take on a task, not whether the idea has married or not
… in the context of a breakout session that can. It can sometimes be difficult to. You know you want as many ideas as possible, and you want as much participation as possible. But there are times where you might have to say, Hey, that's a great idea. But it's not Germans, this discussion.
… or that, you know. Hey? That's a great great idea. But let's take it offline. There's a lot of ways you can manage these things.
… You also want to encourage participation. Anyone who's going to join join a group or a session probably has an interest in the topic or problem that your group is working on, or what your sessions about the experience, their experience or familiarity with the topic.
… Can range from being an expert in the field to newly interested or newly working in it, and some people also may consider themselves more or less technical than others, especially when we're talking about standards work
… as a facilitator. Your role is to encourage everybody and to encourage them to participate.
… And this can happen in a number of different ways. But the goal at the end of the day is to ensure that everyone walks away feeling like they have a stake in the work, and that they were heard
… inevitably, when you are running a session or running a group, there's gonna be people in the group that are more vocal. They might speak up the most in meetings. They may wrote the most comments or log the most issues.
… Participants like this make sharing and facilitating sessions easy, because you can rely on them to have a comment or an opinion. But it's also important to not let the people who are more vocal crowd out those who need more space. Some participants may need time to think about something before they comment, or they may feel discouraged because they're not as confident in their reply as the vocal one.
… Your role is to balance these voices and to facilitate their participation, make everyone feel heard. This can look like a lot of different things. This can be you know, especially if you see someone being particularly quiet, but in meetings all the time you may want to reach out to them directly, either online or offline. and ask their opinion, or encourage them to participate in places like Github.
… It's really important to create alternative ways for people to participate.
… This is, it's a little more challenging in breakout sessions. But when you enter into a group situation.
… you know, people may not be able to attend meetings because of meeting conflicts, or they may not feel comfortable speaking up due to something like a language barrier.
… using work modes that encourage asynchronous participation, like commenting in Github or on email threads creating subgroups or asking participants, or just ask ask participants what they would like to do is as a way to participate in your group.
… The code of conduct.
… So the code of conduct is a resource for all W3C participants to understand what is expected of us, and what we can expect from our fellow participants. When someone breaks those expectations. The code of conduct also provides us with guidance on what to do and how to approach these incidents.
… The code of conduct applies to all participants equally, but some roles hold more responsibility than others.
… When we talk about the facilitator in the code of conduct. The role of the facilitator is addressed specifically in Section 4. In regards to how violations are reported. The facilitator of a meeting is often the best first contact. In case of an incident, facilitators are empowered to take action in the case of an incident. As long as that action is in order to stop the harm, and is proportionate to the action.
… In most cases, when a code of conduct incident takes place within the group, either during a session or offline like in Irc or on email.
… It's important for the facilitator if they're not the one doing it that they step in or make themselves available as a first point of contact.
… Someone may come to you directly, and if you've not already noticed it, and as a facilitator, part of your role is to make it clear that you are open and receptive. So a common thing to do is just to say upfront when you're starting either starting a breakout session or starting a new group to say, Hey, if there's any issues please come to me.
… I am here to listen to you.
… It is possible that you might find that yourself involved in this situation, especially sometimes as a facilitator, you might find yourself
… you know, having some complaint raised against you, or you're involved as a witness.
… You need to step back from handling it in those situations
… and depending on the situation. It might be better handled by others. Some someone like either if you have a Co. Chair in the situation, or you may need to bring in someone from the team to assist or an Ombuds person, which is a program that will be starting up very soon
… within the group. You can often actually handle code of conduct incidents pretty quickly. Incidents that with low severity and complexity can be handled. Usually when they happen.
… handling issues quickly and calmly, can be the best way to steer and demonstrate good group behavior in cases where an issue is raised later, or it occurs outside of a situation that you observed. You want to handle it factually, and with the considerations of all parties in mind, this can be done over email or in any way that the parties feel comfortable with.
… Just to give an example, let's say, during a meeting breakout session, that a participant makes a rude, offhand comment about someone else's idea. the meeting is taking place over Zoom. Everyone has their cameras off as usual, and you're unsure. If the person whose idea was just commented on has heard or reacted to the comment being made.
… You remind the person who made the comment that comments like that are not welcome, and if they have any feedback to please, add themselves to the queue. In order to make an appropriate comment
… through email, you might want to reach out to the person who the comment was directed at just to check in on them, based on their reply. You can decide how to take it further
… when you're running a session or running a group. You have a lot of resources around you usually co-facilitators or even team members. As a collective team, it might be beneficial to discuss in advance how you might handle certain scenarios, especially if you know that a topic is contentious or that certain. You know certain things might get raised when you're preparing for for a session. It's good to be prepared ahead of time, then caught off guard.
… and the trickiest part of being a facilitator is handling difficult situations.
… there is room for discussion sometimes, and there's other times where behavior is unacceptable.
… Sometimes when a conflict or situation occurs, there's room for you to talk about it or to sort it out quickly. You know someone says something that's maybe not completely inappropriate, but verging on it, and you might ask them to rephrase or
… you know, elaborate on what they were getting at
… as a facilitator. It's your role to intervene when a situation moves past the point of discussion or presents a risk to participant safety. There's a difference between a, you know.
… boisterous discussion and one that's getting into a fight
… when we're working on standards and working in these spaces, the goal of our discussions as consensus. But consensus does not mean unanimity. It doesn't mean that everyone has to agree but that everyone is satisfied or comfortable with the decision, and sometimes, when reaching consensus can be working through objections, it can take time, but the result is worth it.
… We also need to be very mindful in our organization of cultural considerations. We're an international organization, and we have to consider that participants may have different perspectives and viewpoints on discussions.
… The diversity of perspectives is good. It helps us write better standards, but it also requires facilitator consideration.
… Some participants that are in your groups or in your sessions may be communicating in a second, third, fourth language, it might require them extra time to process what is being said.
… Other people may come from cultures or backgrounds, or how people communicate with each other differs from how a meeting may be run.
… The best approach to handle this is to give space, to follow up on comments, and to ensure that collective understanding is reached.
… you know. Sometimes you might want to reach out to people directly. If you're not sure how they're feeling
… an important part of handling conflict in any situation is conflict transformation. It's the. It's putting the emphasis on understanding that there are underlying personal, social and structural conditions in order to change our response.
… conflict happens and not all conflict is bad. The goal, when conflict occurs, to turn destructive conflict into constructive conflict
… and a common, and it's a common practice in diplomacy and peace-building work.
… One of the best ways. To understand how to de-escalate conflict is to actually understand how we respond to conflict. There are 5 different high level ways that most people respond to conflict.
… There's a competitive response and avoided response and accommodating response. A compromise response and a collaborative response.
… A good thing to do for yourself is to actually understand how you most often respond to conflicts and something to consider as well is the situation.
… So how you respond to a conflict might depend on who you're talking to. Your style with your romantic partner is probably gonna differ from the one that you use at work.
… but it also could depend on what led to the conflict, or who else is in the room with you.
… Our conflict modes can also combine. You know, someone with another person's in the room, and it can compound or compound, or improve, or make conflict situation worse.
… And our behavior and our actions can have an impact as well.
… just to give an idea of what destructive and constructive behaviors look like destructive behaviors, can include things like shutting down or avoiding conversation, commanding an over proportionate amount of space in the discussion of talking too much.
… bringing unrelated issues into the discussion, and just flat, out, inappropriate things like name, calling microaggressions, physical aggression. A constructive behavior can be things like active, listening exploration of other thoughts and needs tuning into others, readiness for conflict, conversation, and sharing your needs and suggesting solutions.
… When conflict happens, the goal is to reach a win-win resolution. We want everyone to be happy or as happy as we can get them to be one where all the parties in the conflict can feel good.
… Most conflicts are easily resolved
… as long as they're addressed quickly and constructively. Interventions are about correcting the course and ensuring conditions are right for participants to behave properly.
… When we want to think about de-escalation.
… how do we de-escalate when we start to see signs of tension, or once conflict is started, especially in the discussion. You know. You see the queue filling up, or you know, hands being raised
… and maybe you start to see some frustration. One of the best thing. Here's a couple of ideas on how to approach that one.
… the one that I find you know most effective often is just checking in with people.
… you know. Putting putting a pause for a second and saying, Hey, I'm I'm sensing some tension. Or I, you know I'm seeing the queue fill up. Can we please focus or talk about the kind of core issue.
… focus on mutually desirable outcomes. What do you want to come out of this discussion? Remind the participants of the areas of agreement? So if you especially if there's been a lot of people talking, and there's been a lot of back and forth
… kind of being able to pull out the areas where you see everybody's in agreement. But there's these kind of finer points that they're disagreeing on reminding them what they agree about will help lead to a better outcome.
… You want to make room for all voices. It can be challenging sometimes, especially if the queue is filling up.
… That you might want to say, Hey, can we keep our comments short so that we can get through this you want may want to restate the process, especially if you start to see confusion about how decision making will happen.
… Reminding everyone. You know. We will do a resolution at the end of this, or we will handle this in a in an email after the after the meeting is over.
… you want a we over me mentality what's best for everyone, not just what's best for an individual, and emphasize safety, moderate when needed and ensure participants is treated fairly. It is absolutely okay. If you see a discussion going completely off the rails to
… put an end to it. Say, Hey, it's a little bit too heated. Right now
… let's take this offline. This can be we'll create an issue in Github, and we can continue the conversation there, or we'll discuss it in the next meeting.
… And
… these are just some suggestions. So
… I would love to end this session today with talking a little bit about how to handle things like de-escalation and conflict during a meeting.
… You know, when things like sensitive topics or issues are raised, how might you direct conversation?
… you know. Have you ever dealt with a death? Aggressive or disruptive participants? And how did what did you learn from those situations. And I think something that's kind of unique to our situation is, how do we navigate industry specific challenges or conflicting business models?
… Especially when we're running discussions about standards.