Meandering, pointless meetings waste time and so much money. To avoid this pitfall…
Casey’s eTip: Ask 5 Questions to Run Effective Meetings
Here are the five questions to ask at the beginning of each meeting, whether it consists of two people or thirty. They form the acronym TOSCA™. Ask (and answer) them one after the other in sequence:
1. Topic: What is the primary topic of this meeting?
2. Outcome: What do we want to get out of this discussion? (Could be clarity, ideas, a decision, a plan, etc.)
3. Success Measure: How will we know we have achieved that outcome within this meeting? (Could be action items, a clear decision, etc.)
4. Context: What makes this meeting topic (and outcome) important? (I.e., relevant to the company’s strategic goals?)
5. Address & resolve: What is the key issue we need to address in order to move this discussion forward? (What is heart of the matter, the crux of the problem, the elephant in the room, etc.?)
TOSCA was devised by Cameron Gott, PCC; Casey Moore, PCC; and Denslow Brown, MCC.
This eTip brought to you by the Communication/Relationships and Task/Project Management links in your Productivity Chain.