Meeting Protocol

Organiser: is the person who calls a meeting. Anyone can call a meeting.
Invitees: everyone who is invited to the meeting.
Participants: the people who actually took part in the meeting.
Facilitator: the person running the meeting and who ensures that proper meeting protocol is followed. Doesn’t have to be the organiser.
Notetaker: the person responsible for taking notes during the meeting.

Ensure everyone is clear on their role on a meeting before it starts. This is usually obvious, but double check if in doubt.
Start on time. Don't wait for late birds.
When starting, state the agenda and objective. You might need to remind people of the objective during the meeting as well.
There will be no review for those who are late.
Come prepared to meetings. For example don't waste your colleagues' time and energy by making them watch you search for files on your computer.
Meeting room facilities are prepared ahead of schedule by the facilitator so that the meeting can start on time.

Keep your laptops closed and ears open during a meeting. Be respectful of your colleagues' time.
Be cognisant of the level of detail required for discussion.
Everyone is free to leave a meeting when they are feeling like they are neither gaining value nor providing value. This is a healthy feedback loop that surfaces that either: a) the person wanting to leave has not bought-in to the meeting and considers it useless, they may need to be "recruited", or b) the person who set up the meeting invited too many people. Both those failure modes are real, and should be remedied.
People who are doing other things on the side are reminded that they are free to leave the meeting.
No side conversations.
Stay on topic, don't go off on a tangent.
Silence your phone. If you have to take a call during a meeting, take it outside, but know that the meeting won't stop for you. If your absence would jeopardise the goal of the meeting, don't take the call.

Finish on time. If you need more time, reschedule.
It’s okay to end meetings early.
To conclude a meeting summarise what the meeting accomplished, any agreements, any action items. Explain what will happen next and recap any next steps.
Restore the meeting room to the state in which you found them. Take your rubbish with you, take used glasses to the kitchen, clean up. It is the facilitators responsibility (he/she can delegate it of course) to make sure the room is clean afterwards. Guests/customers are exempt from this.

Each meeting must have a log, and each log must include:
- time
- participants (add a note if they were only partially present)
- decision log
- action items. Each action item must have exactly 1 assignee (that person may delegate but there is only ever 1 responsible assignee)
Notetaker sends out the meeting notes to all invitees after the meeting.
We record meeting notes in Confluence (signed deals, i.e. real projects) or Hubspot (leads that are not yet signed).

Be brief.
Be specific.
Is there an "undiscussable" issue that’s really at the heart of things?
Emotional expression is welcome.
Avoid name-calling, stereotypes, cheap shots, or jokes at someone’s expense.
Avoid put-downs, even humorous ones.
Work toward understanding – you don’t have to agree in order to paraphrase.
Common ownership of ideas; don’t use names unless necessary for clarity.
We are here to debate ideas, not personalities.
Minimise repetition.
Do not interrupt when another participant is speaking. (The facilitator can interrupt as needed to support the process.)
Encourage everyone to participate.
Listen actively and attentively.
Take responsibility for the quality of the discussion.
Build on one another’s comments; work toward shared understanding.
Know when to take discussions offline.
Remind others who don’t follow the meeting protocol, including ourselves.
Meeting facilitator ensures that meeting protocol is followed.
Meeting facilitator maintains harmony during discussions, and balances out personalities. Loud people are tempered, quiet people are encouraged.
The facilitator can say the safeword "Heymo" when the discussion derails, this is an invitation to a) shut up and get back on track of the current agenda, and b) potentially arrange a break-out meeting if needed for the other subject

9Y Playbook