101 Ways to Make Meetings Active

Silberman, Mel (1999).  101 Ways to Make Meetings Active: Surefire Ideas to Engage Your Group.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.

Here are some sample techniques from the book.

1) Group Resume: divide participants into teams of 3-6 people each.  Tell them we represent an incredible array of talents and experiences and we're going to combine all our education, total years of experience, skills, publications, awards and hobbies as if we were just ONE incredible person.  Have each group come up with a list, then combine them; e.g., "In her 35 years as a professor, Dr. Doe has earned eleven Ph.Ds (list), written ten books (list) and over 200 articles (don't list!), won seven awards (list), and in her free time likes to golf, ski, skydive, write books, watch movies, work for charities, and play in a rock band!"    

2) Stand and be Counted: prepare slides or overheads with a dozen or so questions, some that lots of people will respond to (who drinks coffee?) and others more specific ("Who is left handed?).  Ask people to stand and be counted for each question---you announce a question, they stand, you quickly count, write the totals, they sit and you fire off the next question.  Go fast---everyone should be standing and sitting enough to have to pay close attention.  Throw in a couple of joke questions.

3) Three-stage Fishbowl Discussion: Make two rings of chairs facing inward, with room for a 1/3 of participants to sit on the ground inside the small ring (if impractical, use three rings of chairs).  Count off by threes: 1s are the discussion group (only they may talk) and go in the circle, 2s in the inside ring of chairs, and 3s in the outside ring of chairs.   After 5-10 minutes, the groups swap: the discussion group goes to the outside ring and everyone else migrates one ring in.  Ask the new discussion group if they want to comment on the earlier discussion; if not, give them a second topic to discussion.  Use one more round until everyone has participated.

4) Go to Your Post: Create signs that say "Strongly Agree", "Agree", "Not Sure", "Disagree", and "Strongly Disagree" and post them in different parts of the room.  Read statements about session topics and tell people to move to the place in the room where their feeling about the matter is posted.  Give each group a few minutes to discuss among themselves, then ask each group for a representative to briefly summarize their position on that issue to the whole class.  Repeat the process.  If you don't have much time, an alternate exercise is to give each participant different colored index cards for each alternative and tally them from the front of the room.

5) Dot Voting: pass out sticky dots of various colors.  Assign values to the colors (e.g., 80% good idea, 50% good idea, etc.).  After any exercise where items are generated on a flip chart, announce a break so participants can mingle and place their dots next to each comment or idea.  Tally the results.

6) Brainwalking:  Tape one flip chart page to the wall for each participant and give each participant a uniquely-colored marker.  Explain brainstorming and let each brainstorm on a topic for a few minutes.  Then everyone shifts to the right and uses their marker to either add to the existing comment or jot down a new one.  Continue in the same direction until each sheet has been written on by five or six persons.  Ask each person to return to their original sheet and select the best two ideas to share with the group.  Alternative:  negative brainstorming (i.e., instead of asking how can we make our event a success, brainstorm ways to make it a failure).

7) Hot Issues: to handle controversial issues, have the group brainstorm a list of perspectives of all the people who have a stake in the outcome.  Write each perspective at the top of a flip chart page, divide each page into three columns (labeled "F", "A", and "Q") and tape the pages up around the room.  Give each person some Post-it Notes and explain that every person must contribute to every chart, labeling each note as a Fact (supported by evidence), an Assumption, or a Question.  Divide the group into as many subgroups as you have flip-chart pages and every few minutes make the groups rotate to a new chart.  Take the pages down and go through them as a class: verify facts, create a plan to answer questions, look for relationships among perspectives, and lastly create a plan to solve the problem.

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