Run Effective and Welcoming Meetings
Once onboarding is complete, start planning how to run the rest of your meetings successfully.
This section walks you through the steps to run an effective, engaging, and accessible meeting. Following these steps helps create a space where everyone feels welcome, able to participate, and supported.
Create A Clear, Simple Agenda
Giving participants a detailed agenda prior to meetings provides clarity and allows individuals time to prepare their questions and comments.
- Keep it simple.
- State the goal of the meeting.
- Include any questions that participants might be asked, including icebreakers.
- Let participants know if/when they can ask questions.
- Allow sufficient time in the agenda for meaningful discussion.
- Indicate time allocated for each agenda item. Plan enough time for everyone to participate.
- Schedule a short break if the meeting lasts more than an hour.
Once your agenda is set, make sure your internal team understands their roles and how the meeting will run.
Assign Roles and Responsibilities
- Clarify roles and responsibilities.
- Review the agenda and clarify who is leading each section.
- Decide who will keep time, monitor chat, and handle tech issues.
- Practice using accessibility tools and meeting platforms in advance.
- Discuss planned facilitation techniques and strategies for managing conflict.
- Have a backup plan in case of emergency.
Prepare Materials
- Ensure all presentation materials and handouts are accessible.
- Verify that all videos have accurate captions and audio descriptions if needed.
- Test technology and accessibility features (e.g., captioning, screen sharing, microphone, camera lighting).
- Translate materials into other languages if needed.
- Provide copies of slides, handouts, and other materials in advance to participants, interpreters, and captioners (ideally 3–5 days before the session).
Pre-Meeting Checklist
Once the major pieces are in place, use the checklist below to confirm everything is ready.
Lead Discussions with Intention
Intentional meeting facilitation is helpful when moderating discussions, keeping a meeting on track, and ensuring all participants have opportunities to contribute. Leaders can foster collaboration, respect participants' time, and drive meaningful outcomes by considering the following guidelines:
- Stick to the agenda, discussing one topic at a time.
- Avoid getting off topic.
- Be comfortable with pauses in the conversation. Attendees may have delays due to technology or require more time to process information.
- Encourage participation from everyone. Don’t let people dominate discussions or interrupt others.
- Take time to consider new ways of thinking and unconventional approaches to addressing problems.
- Speak directly to participants even if interpreters or care attendants are present.
- Slow down. Allow ample time for unhurried communication.
- Provide opportunities for questions. Make sure that what you are communicating is understood before moving on to the next topic.
- Encourage participants to participate in the way they are most comfortable (verbally or in writing).
- Give participants time to process before agreeing to a decision.
Acknowledge Missteps
Remember – even with all the pre-planning in the world, it is still likely that mistakes will be made. You may accidentally forget to turn on captioning for a meeting, or a member might not have disclosed their needs to the workgroup manager in advance. At times, the community members engaging in policy work with you may not have a perfect experience. You may also encounter feelings of distrust from community members because of their past experiences with state government, even if you are doing your best.
If mistakes happen, acknowledge and validate these feelings and commit to treating community members with dignity and respect. Make sure that the voices of state government staff do not silence community member voices in the group.
Address Conflict Intentionally
Conflict is a natural part of working together. In diverse workgroups, where members bring different expectations, experiences, priorities and perspectives, group facilitators should be prepared to address and resolve conflict thoughtfully.
Many conflicts can be prevented by being clear and consistent from the start. Group agreements help everyone know how to communicate and disagree respectfully. When roles and decision-making are clearly explained, people are less likely to feel confused or frustrated. Make it easy for participants to ask for accessibility support. Using clear agendas, a familiar meeting structure, and regular check-ins helps surface concerns early and keeps small issues from becoming bigger ones.
When you notice conflict:
- Pause the conversation – try saying “I’m noticing some tension here. Let’s pause and make space to talk this through.”
- Name the tension neutrally
- Reaffirm group agreements
- Listen for Understanding
- Identify the Core Issue
- Explore Options
- Agree on Next Steps
Follow-Up
After the meeting ends, send a follow-up email – this helps reinforce trust, supports people who process information at different speeds, and keeps the work moving forward between meetings. The follow-up email is also a good opportunity to ask participants for ideas that might come to mind after the meeting. This gives people who take longer to process information (and introverts) the opportunity to participate.
Send an email with:
- Meeting summary
- Notes or minutes
- Recording (if applicable)
- Links or resources that were shared in the meeting
- Follow-up information, assignments, or next steps
Invitation for constructive feedback or thoughts about how the meeting went
Example: “Anyone have a new thoughts or insights about this situation since we met? If so, we’d love to hear them.”
Feedback Survey
Feedback surveys are another great way to get engagement from people who don’t speak up much at meetings or who just take a little longer to process their thoughts. Response rates are often much higher when you send a survey with specific questions instead of an email that just says, “let me know what you think.” The framework of a survey helps people respond thoughtfully and is less vague and open-ended than generic prompt.
Post-meeting feedback surveys can be about the actual topic of discussion, such as the policy that the group is working on, or they can be used to solicit feedback about how the meeting itself was conducted and how participants are feeling. Be open to constructive feedback – participants may tell you something in an anonymous survey that they wouldn’t feel comfortable saying out loud in front of the group, and they might suggest something or request an accommodation that improves the way the group functions.
Lastly, ask questions about the accessibility of the meeting, inviting members to reflect on what worked well, and what could be improved in the future. Give participants the option of meeting with you individually after the workgroup concludes to debrief.
Example of Post-Meeting Survey & Resources
Survey Resources
At the Office of Equity, we recommend using Smartsheet for creating surveys as it is a secure software that is highly customizable for our unique needs and it meets our data privacy standards, unlike some of the other common and free-to-use survey tools currently available.
Post-Meeting Checklist
These items should be completed within 3 days of the meeting, preferably in one single email.
- Meeting minutes attached
- Any links or resources that were shared in the meeting chat or mentioned
- Any assigned tasks or to-do's should be mentioned in the body of your email (not buried in attached meeting minutes); use bold font or colored highlight for emphasis
- Feedback survey (optional)
- Reminder of next meeting time
- Friendly, open invitation to schedule time to meet 1:1 if anyone needs support
Assess Your Efforts
Workgroup managers should seek feedback from workgroup members to understand where they are succeeding and where their approach needs improvement. It is not enough to passively accept feedback or claim to have an “open door policy.” Rather, workgroup managers should proactively seek out feedback from workgroup members.
Create a brief survey that invites workgroup members to share their thoughts about their experience. If the workgroup in question is short term, one survey or assessment at the end of the project may suffice, or you may want to issue a survey bi-annually or annually if the workgroup is ongoing for a longer period.
Assess workgroup members’ experience by sending an anonymous survey including prompts such as:
Format
Whenever possible, use Yes/No or Likert-scale response options (for example, Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree) rather than only open-ended questions. Structured responses make it easier to summarize results, identify trends over time, compare findings across workgroups, and measure progress toward community engagement goals. Open-ended questions should still be included to provide context, explain ratings, and capture insights or suggestions that may not be reflected in quantitative data alone.
Collecting Quantitative data allows you to establish measurable performance indicators such as:
- Percent of participants who agreed or strongly agreed that they felt welcome and respected.
- Percent of participants who agreed or strongly agreed that their participation influenced the workgroup’s discussions, recommendations, or decisions.
- Percent of participants who agreed or strongly agreed that they had meaningful opportunities to participate in discussions and decision-making.