Equitable and Efficient Collaborations

Introduction

We've all experienced bad meetings. These can be due to a lack of planning, disorganization, unclear objectives, weak moderation, difficult interpersonal dynamics, and a variety of other issues.

For better or worse, meetings are one of the main mechanisms we use in our workplaces to share, plan, organize and move forward on initiatives. Meetings are a necessary part of collaborative work.

We can make them better!

The purpose of this toolkit is to support improved collaboration through efficient and equitable meetings. This toolkit was written to serve as a handy resource to save time, increase efficiency and promote equitable and inclusive spaces for collective thinking and action.

We cannot provide easy solutions to all meeting challenges, but this resource is designed to help smooth some of the bumps in the road. We have identified some of the recurrent challenges with meetings and also collected some of the good practices that can help you out to save time and achieve your objectives.

This toolkit includes guidance for four categories of meetings:

• Formal meetings
• Project management meetings
• Brainstorming meetings
• Strategic planning meetings

Efficiency

Meetings require time, from both organizers and the participants. Making the best use of that time requires planning and clarity in purpose and process. It is important that meetings have defined goals/objectives, hold space for sufficient discussion and inclusive participation, facilitate actions through roles and responsibilities, and support accountability for next steps. For efficient meetings, it is critical to think through and structure the steps – pre-meeting, during meeting and post-meeting.

Equity

Meetings can reflect collective values, and it is important to recognize some of the dynamics that can affect equity. Meetings can reinforce hierarchies, both explicitly and implicitly. Meetings can also be overtaken by seniority or dominant personalities and views, closing the space for out of the box thinking or minority perspectives. An important first step is to keep equity considerations in mind in planning and executing all types of meetings. Meetings, and the pre- and post-planning, can be structured to mitigate some of these issues through such approaches as open and consistent information sharing; synchronous and asynchronous collaboration mechanisms, personal outreach, and acknowledging and validating different learning and communication styles within the group. This is hard work, but creating more productive and enjoyable collaboration spaces is worth the effort and ensures that we are putting equity principles into action.

Meeting types

Formal meetings - meetings with a higher level of formality than most meetings!

Project management meetings - regular meetings for managing a project from start to finish.

Brainstorming meeting - small group meeting to generate ideas, to problem solve, and think creatively.

Strategic planning meetings - meetings to create or contribute to strategic planning processes.

Tools and Templates

We have made a number of resources available on Google Drive.

• Agenda template
• Meeting invite template

Contact information

These materials were produced at UC Davis in a collaboration between Grand Challenges (Molly McKinney), Global Affairs (Jolynn Shoemaker), and DataLab (C. Titus Brown).

Please contact Molly McKinney at mcmckinney@ucdavis.edu with suggestions and questions!