Preparation

Note any documents that need to be reviewed or activities that need to be completed before the workshop.

Problems

Focus on the customer’s experiences. Prioritize them in order of severity and choose one or two to focus on. Resist the desire to skip ahead to “fixing” until you have organized the problems you are going to solve.

Solutions Brainstorm

It’s time to figure out how to solve the problem, design the flow, or develop the plan.‍

Brainstorming tips:

• The more ideas the better!
• Don’t worry about how feasible an idea is just yet (Expensive ideas may lead to other ideas that fit your resources)
• Provide sketching materials. Encourage everyone to visualize the solution
• If the group is large, break into smaller, cross-disciplinary teams and then report ideas back to the group‍

Size & Prioritize

List your potential solutions in the following format --> Solution | Impact | Effort

• Rewrite all site copy | medium | medium
• Leverage API to automate enrollment | medium | large‍

Do we need to...

• Gather more evidence? (Can we understand the problem better?)
• Explore alternate solutions? (We loved these solutions but they’re too big. Let’s find a quicker fix to fit our timeline)
• Research solution size in more detail? (We need more information to understand which solution requires less effort)‍

Next Steps

• @name Task by DUE-DATE

Parking Lot

Store topics and ideas that are out of scope or beyond reach for this workshop.

Attendees

A skip one-on-one meeting is a meeting with managers or senior leaders in the company with those who are in junior positions. It is important not to have the meeting with a direct report in order to get honest and accurate feedback. To be truly effective you must create an environment in which the employee feels comfortable. Ideally, the manager should have a relationship with the individual being interviewed. Remember these sessions are about listening and learning from different perspectives in the organizations. 

‍Preparation‍

Managers should come armed with questions about the business based on data they’ve reviewed in advance — both qualitative and quantitative. 

Here are some questions you might want to ask in your one-on-ones:  

• What is the morale in the office from their point of view?
• How they are feeling about his or her team?
• What their manager is doing well and not well?
• What obstacles are they facing in their job? (If you are their skip-level manager, take steps to unblock these obstacles — it will mean a lot to the person that you took action.)
• Do you understand the company’s goals and how your team’s goals fit into that picture?
• Do you feel like you can do things you believe are right for the business?
• Do you think leadership acts consistently with your values?
• What would make work better for you?
• When was the last time you took a vacation?
• What is your sacred space? Do you feel like you have time for it?

Open Forum

• Ask the interviewee if there is anything that was not covered above that they would like to add?
  

Team Review

Share updates on overall progress, key metrics, and anecdotes to give your team an up-to-date understanding of current initiatives.‍

Individual Updates

Allow each team member to briefly share what they've been working on. This includes progress, obstacles, achievements, and any other information that would be valuable for the team.‍

Positive Highlights

Acknowledge big wins and milestones accomplished since the last weekly meeting. What valuable lessons were learned?‍

Roadblocks & Concerns

Have any issues or challenges come up since the last weekly meeting? Are there any particular problems a team member is stuck on? How can we help solve them?‍

New Information

Are there any new metrics, trends, customer feedback, or market influences we should be aware of? What about company announcements or industry news? Share any resources that would help the team understand these concepts better.‍

Other Important Notes

Summarize any other valuable information that was shared. It does not have to be directly related to the weekly meeting agenda.‍

Upcoming Priorities

What are the main priorities we should focus on for next week? How are we planning to approach these? What does success look like?‍

Main Takeaways

What were the main insights from this weekly meeting? Include key decisions made, progress reports, and any opportunities, issues, or concerns that should be shared with colleagues.‍

Share

List all key stakeholders not present and other departments that this information should be shared with.‍

Take Action

Clarify next steps for the entire team as well as each individual. Note who's completing them, and when they should be done by. You can assign these tasks from this template.

Location

For Town Halls, access the meeting via a video chat. This is a powerful way of creating a shared experience across the entire company, wherever they are. 

Department Updates

Town Halls are a great way to hear about what different teams and departments are working on by setting up demos, or sharing statistics with the entire company. In the absence of in person communication day today, it’s easy to run into the trap of different teams feeling siloed and out of the loop. It is also a good time for management and executives to reiterate the bigger picture in terms of company priorities.

Solidifying Company Culture

The first card read aloud is called Town Hall Announcements. The 10 items in the checklist on this card are akin to the “10 commandments” for the company. These state the core philosophies of the company and the company culture.  At the beginning of each Town Hall, someone reads these 10 principles out loud so that they are reiterated to the entire company. We always have a new hire read the list so that they become familiar with these philosophies. 

An Open Platform For The People

The goal of a Town Hall is to have a transparent company wide meeting with an open forum for any employee to be able to ask questions, voice concerns, celebrate great contributions, or update the company on their work.

Anyone can add a card to Announcements/Questions with the goal of addressing every single card on the list during the town hall. If you add a card to the list, add yourself to the card so that the meeting moderator can call on you when your card comes up.

Celebrate Successes

Town Hall meetings are not all business. The meetings are a rare opportunity when the entire team is together, which is especially novel in distributed companies. Take the time to build your employees up by establishing fun traditions and finding different ways to celebrate successes.

Easy Access Meeting Minutes

Of course, once a town hall is done this doesn’t mean it should be forgotten. Meeting Minutes from the Town Hall should be easily accessed by all employees after the meeting is over.‍

Introductions and chit chat (2 mins)

Quick opportunity for the team to build rapport and break the ice.

Expectations and purpose (2 mins)

• What are you looking to achieve in this meeting?
• What is required from attendees?

Discussion points (10 mins)

• Attendees to add any applicable discussion points here before the meeting.

Action items (3 min)

Each item should have a clear deliverable, date and person responsible. Which stakeholders will be affected and how will they be informed?

Required resources (1 mins)

• Include a plan to get these resources in place too.

‍

Add these meeting notes to your project management or meeting notes software and include in follow-up communications

Team

• Founding story and insights
• Overview of key team members

Business Overview

• Market size and dynamics
• Product overview: why is it 10x better?  
• Where does it go from here?
• Go-to-market: what is the distribution and customer acquisition model?
• Why will you succeed?

Metrics

• Market size and dynamics
• Key growth or financial metrics, KPIs
• Customers  
• Cash burn, runway

Competitive landscape

• Competitor #1
• Competitor #2
• How is the company differentiated, why will it win, or what makes it 10x better?

Funding history

• Capital raised to date, main investors, date of last financing
• Fundraising plans

Next steps

• Follow up plan

‍Preparation

The most important aspect of this meeting is the meeting memo. This way you don't spend half the meeting briefing one another. Here is what you need to include in every board memo: 

• Each team leader writes their own section, no more than 1-2 pages summarizing the state of the business. Introduction, things going well, challenges, plans for the future, update on items from last time. These sections can contain graphs and charts
• The CEO summarizes and provides a narrative at the beginning of the document
• The VP Finance attaches the financial statements and key reports
• The team circulates the narrative with the board ahead of time. Board members comment and ask questions as they read. The team clarifies points and provides analysis where necessary

Meeting Minutes

Call to Order

• A [meeting type] meeting of [organization name] was held on [date] at [location]. It began at [time] and was presided over by [chairperson’s name], with [secretary’s name] as secretary
  

‍Attendance

Voting members

• ‍
  

Guests

• ‍
  

Members not in attendance

• ‍

‍Approval of minutes

‍A motion to approve the minutes of the previous [date] meeting was made by [name] and seconded by [name].

Matters up for decision:

• Major strategic decisions
• Routine decisions
  

Matters up for discussion: 

• ‍‍
  

CEO report: 

• Current pressing issues
• Matters for approval
• Update on strategic plan implementation/rollout 
• Critical Key Performance Indicators 
• Risk and compliance update
• Discussion around financial statements and key reports  
  

Committee minutes 

• Audit and risk committee
• Governance committee 
  

Other matters for discussion

Meeting finalization 

• Actions to be taken
• Items for public disclosure
• Next meeting
• Meeting close

Sprint Goal

What is the main purpose of this sprint? Define key objectives below.‍

Sprint Backlog

What user stories match the sprint goal? Share this with your team prior to the meeting so they can contribute. Break each user story down into individual tasks. Make sure each task has as much information as possible. Include important metrics.

‍Epics to be Delivered

List out the epics that we're planning to start or deliver during this sprint.‍

Scope of Work Clarification

Revisit your definition of "done." Decide on the acceptance criteria that will be used to determine when each individual task is complete. Make sure all of this realistically aligns with your team's capacity. ‍

Key Risks & Concerns

What potential issues could come up based on the goal and sprint backlog? How can we solve them? Does the scope of work allot enough time for unexpected issues

‍Notes and Takeaways

What were the main insights and discussion points from this sprint planning session?‍

Take Action

Get verbal confirmation from your team about the next steps to be taken. Clarify who's completing them and when they should be done by. Note this information here to share and assign.‍

Follow-Up

How will we keep in touch and stay up-to-date about progress? Should we schedule a follow-up meeting?

Overview & Objective

State your project’s audience and objective in a clear and focused way.

State the Ground Rules

Brainstorming is a place and time where anything goes. Rules:

• All ideas are welcome. Negativity is not.
• Build on ideas. Don't shoot them down.
• Do not censor yourself. Just say it.
• Encourage participation from everyone
• No interruptions from outside.
  

First Half: Brainstorm

Start sharing ideas. Note them somewhere where everyone can see (whether that be a poster, whiteboard, or in your Hugo meeting notes in the highlighted area below). To keep your creative juices flowing you may also want to provide toys, coloring books, magazines, doodling pads etc.

Halftime: Refine

Stop and take a vote on each idea. Thumbs up or down. Toss the ideas that lack support.

Improve on the Best Ideas

Look at the best ideas from halftime. Ask if there are ways to improve them, or come up with ideas that are similar.

Brainstorm Round Two

Once you’ve covered each of the good ideas, generate more new ideas just as you did at the beginning of the session.

Brainstorm

Next Steps

• @name Task by DUE-DATE

Executive Business Review and Purpose 

Outline the purpose of the meeting and briefly go over the topics you will be covering as well as your goals for the next quarter. Make sure to emphasize ROI during your introduction. 

Specific elements of a QBR that may become a standard part of your delivery:‍

Last Quarter Review

If done regularly, the output of a QBR should include the stated goals for the next 90 days with the intention of reviewing and comparing results against those goals at the next QBR. So the starting point for preparing for a QBR is to review and assess the goals and results for the past quarter.‍

Support review

• How many cases were opened and closed
• Breakout by type and severity
• Average time to resolution
• Any currently outstanding

Health scorecard

• Overall health score
• Scorecard methodology and results
• Health score trends

Lifecycle stage

• Where is the customer today
• Where were they 90 and 180 days ago
• What will it take to get to the next stage

Benchmarking

• How does this customer compare to others
• Where are they falling short and what needs to happen to get them up to, or past, the benchmark

Product usage

• What does usage look like along with trends
• Which features are being used, which aren’t
• Most active users
• License deployment and value received

Goals and Recommendations

Outline the goals and recommendations you have for the next quarter and open them up for discussion and approval. Have a concrete plan in place for achieving these goals. 

Summary and Next Steps 

• Summarize the key priorities and next steps for the upcoming quarter
  

‍Welcome

• Review agenda
• Confirm objectives
  

Opening Session

Check-in and good news

Review previous quarter

• Results
• Bright spots
• Lessons learned

Stop, Keep, Start

• What are we doing now?
• What are 1-2 things we can work on?
• What should we stop doing?

Review annual plan

• YTD progress
• Opportunities
• Threats
  

-- Break --

Quarterly Execution Plan

What should be the focus of this quarter?

• Develop theme/subthemes
• What is your company’s number one thing?

Priorities

Company top 3-5 priorities

• Determine top priorities
• Assign each priority an owner
• Set success criteria

Individual top 3-5 priorities

• Determine top priorities for individuals
• Set success criteria

Communication plan for the rest of the company

• ‍

Wrap Up

• Summarize and commit.

Launch Plan:

🔗 Resources

• Asana Link:
• Wishlist Item:
• Demo:
• PRD:

🗓️ Launch Details

• Date(s):
• Success metric(s):
• Beta flag:
• Slack channel:

📝 Messaging Framework

• Name of the product/feature:
• Target customer:
• Customer problem:
• Feature details:
• Messaging pillars:
• Teachable concepts:

🐥  Beta Plan

• Dates:
• Duration:
• Goal:
• Documentation:
• Target group:
• Feedback collection:
• Communication timeline:
• Summary of findings:

🎓 WFU Articles to Update

Article:

• Notes

Article:

• Notes

📥 Production

Asset:

• Details
• Owner

Asset:

• Details
• Owner

📣 Distribution

Initiative:

• Channel
• Owner

Initiative:

• Channel
• Owner

🗓️ Timeline

Date:

• Milestone

Date:

• Milestone
  

Recap of Initial Expectations

Give a brief synopsis of the event. Include aspects like plans, timelines, and deliverables if applicable.‍

Recap of Outcome

Summarize the incident. What happened compared to what should have happened? Provide context so other team members can understand.‍

Stakeholder Input

Do any key stakeholders have discussion points to contribute? Share this template before the post-mortem meeting to gather feedback.‍

Roadblocks & Risks

What barriers or unexpected obstacles arose that changed the outcome of this event?‍

Root Causes

Identify the main cause of each issue above. Be specific. Were objectives clear? Was the schedule realistic? Did any changes in scope occur?‍

Main Takeaways

Summarize the key insights from this post-mortem. How can we ensure this incident doesn't happen again? What should we do differently next time?‍

Resources

List any additional resources that can help the team address all risks and root causes identified.‍

Next Steps

What can be done now? Who is responsible? Clarify any next steps, who's completing them, and when they should be done by. Note this information here to share.

Our Objective

Reiterate the objective of the project

Deadlines/Milestones

Include in the agenda high-level milestones

Project Update Roundtable

• Name

• Summarize 1-5 updates here in the agenda

• Name

• Summarize 1-5 updates here in the agenda
  

Roadblocks & Risks

• Where are you blocked? How can the team help?
  

Next Steps

• @name Task by DUE-DATE