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Employees seated around a table having a weekly team meeting.

Brief

Weekly Team Meetings

By Mark Abbott and Mike Frascolla

“This meeting could have been an email” has become a cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less accurate.

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Introduction

A spoke-and-wheel image depicting meetings at the center of all other Ninety elements, including Process, Vision, To-Dos, Issues, etc.

Ninety makes it easy to have great Weekly Team Meetings (WTMs). Teams can create custom agendas to fit their unique needs or use our standard agenda, which hits the four most important reasons for having a WTM in the first place:

  1. Sharing good news
  2. Deepening team connection and health
  3. Ensuring we're on top of things that matter
  4. Creating a consistent time and place to address issues and opportunities

To end, attendees rate the meeting to assess whether it was a great use of time. We can’t promise to work magic, but there’s a reason companies have used Ninety’s Meetings tool hundreds of thousands of times.

Tool Overview

Ninety’s standard agenda has seven sections: Segue, Data, Rocks, Headlines, To-Dos, Issues, and Conclude.

Agenda

  1. Segue — Each meeting starts with a Segue. During the Segue, everyone shares a piece of personal and professional news. The idea is to stay connected as humans. Think of it as a quick gratitude session.
  2. Data — Every team needs a Scorecard (included within Ninety's Data tool) containing key performance indicators and targets to help ensure everything is running well. Targets should be set to make it easy to see when there is an issue. Don’t fall into the trap of analyzing each number. If there’s an issue, move it to the issues list. No discussion.
  3. Rocks — We execute a quick fly-by to ensure our Rocks are on track for completion by the end of the quarter. If a Rock looks off track, ask if the Rock owner or any other team member needs to discuss it further. If they do, make it an issue. No discussion.
  4. Headlines — Headlines are bits of news that are important but not necessarily related to the company’s goals. Think “Jill had her baby,” or “Stephen’s going out of town for a week.” If it’s news worth sharing with other teams, share it using the Cascading Messages feature.
  5. To-Dos — We only need five minutes to check our To-Do list and see if there are any complications. If something is off track, right-click and set it as an issue. We’ll have time to dissect it later.

  6. Issues — Time to tackle the short-term issues list. Resolving issues is the primary purpose of a Weekly Team Meeting, after all. Start by reviewing the list for opportunities to kill or combine issues. Then, rank the remaining issues from 5 (must discuss today) to 1 (not urgent). Ninety lets you organize and document each decision in the Meetings tool.

    The goal is to do one of three things with each issue:

    • Make it a To-Do and assign it to someone.
    • Turn it into a long-term issue to tackle in either your Quarterly or Annual Planning Meeting. These are the bigger issues the team’s not ready to address.
    • Solve it. Hash it out. Frequently, the team can make a decision on how to proceed, and the issue can be checked off the list.
  7. Conclude — With issues handled, it’s now time to conclude our meeting. We take a beat and recap what happened. Then, everyone involved rates the meeting on a scale of 1 to 10. This rating represents the meeting’s efficiency, the topics covered, preparedness, anything. Meetings start at a perfect 10, and if we rate it less than 9, we should explain why and how it could have been better.

Three employees having a discussion around a table. One employee is standing and leading the discussion.

Core Disciplines of Great WTMs

  1. Same day, same time, same agenda. Start on time, end on time.
  2. Save discussions for the Issues section. That means the only words and phrases shared before the Issues section are: yes, no, on track, off track, make it an issue, or make it a To-Do.
  3. During the week, if someone comes to the team leader with an issue, ask if it can wait for the WTM. This simple discipline really pays off, saving team members as much as a month’s worth of time over the course of a year.

Hopefully Helpful Hints

  • Don’t worry about being perfect

    Running an efficient and effective meeting is a skill, just like playing an instrument — very few people can pick it up and use it perfectly right out of the gate. Be patient. The meeting scores might be a little rough until the team develops some familiarity with the system. But consistent practice will foster a smooth rhythm.

  • Try to avoid breaking the recommended time for each section

    Consistency is key. That said, we’ll confess — at Ninety, we’re prone to run over on the Segue. Staying connected is important to us, especially as a remote work company.

  • Make sure every team member can make every meeting every week

    Avoid scheduling conflicts. While some may be skeptical at first, team members will soon find themselves looking forward to these efficient Weekly Team Meetings. Until then, ensure that all team members set aside this time save for emergencies or vacations.

  • One person leads the meeting while another manages Ninety

    We find it best to have a facilitator lead the meeting while a scribe manages the updates in Ninety. The team leader doesn’t always need to run the meeting. In fact, letting others run the meeting in Ninety frees team leaders to focus on thinking through issues and ensuring everyone is being seen and appropriately involved.

  • Keep things fresh by rotating who’s running the meeting

    Any team member can start the meeting in Ninety. By taking turns running the software, we ensure everyone builds familiarity with the platform and the meeting agenda.

Takeaway

Weekly Team Meetings provide a safe, productive environment to solve problems, prioritize tasks, and ensure To-Dos and Rocks are on track. As a result, they free up time to get smart stuff done. A properly run WTM is invaluable, saving teams much more time than it takes.

What’s more, meeting weekly as a team fosters a profound sense of connection. WTMs empower team members to take ownership of and pride in their contributions and crystalize how those contributions further the team’s goals.

Interested in diving deeper into WTMs? Check out our guide On Weekly Team Meetings for an in-depth look at each section and additional resources for running great meetings.

What’s next? Visit the 90u Library or try Ninety today.
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