Facilitating Effective Meetings

UW-Madison Continuing Studies is offering “Facilitating Effective Meetings”:

“This class is offered in a highly participatory live-online format.

Gain an understanding of the mechanics of managing a meeting well. Whether your meetings are virtual or in-person with social distancing, you will learn how to develop a focused agenda, manage meeting dynamics, deal with disruptive behavior, keep the meeting on track, track assignments and record the decisions and actions of the group. In the age of COVID-19 where everyday interactions have been transformed, this session gives you new tools for managing the dynamics of virtual meetings. The session includes templates and models to use for agenda development and meeting notes.

Overview

Desired learning outcomes:

By the end of this session, the participant should be able to:

1. Apply a variety of meeting tools and templates to help their meeting remain focused on its work and achieve its goals.
2. Discuss the role of the meeting leader/facilitator in guiding the work of a meeting.
3. Describe and demonstrate methods and tools for:
   • Encouraging participation
   • Equalizing participation
   • Keeping the meeting on task
   • Managing conflict and disagreement
   • Dealing with disruptive behaviors
4. Describe meeting consensus and demonstrate methods for both sensing and achieving consensus around important meeting decisions.
5. Discuss the importance of periodically evaluating meeting effectiveness.”