Agree on good meeting habits with the DIY Meeting Game

Agree on good meeting habits with the meeting game

Good meetings occur when new habits are agreed upon.

The Meeting Game is developed by Mette Ploug Meineche and Wenche Strømsnes, Better Meetings.
The Meeting Game is a danish language tool for meetings. It is available in danish language only. 

The recipe is:

• Everyone must prepare before a meeting.
• Everyone must participate in the conversation at the meeting.
• Everyone must follow up.

Good meetings are achieved when good meeting habits are agreed upon. This can be difficult because habits are difficult to change when it is a group that needs to change the same habits at the same time.

With the meeting game, you get the necessary conversation about your everyday meetings. The meeting game consists of game pieces for the most common meeting dilemmas. Each piece has good questions and tips from the podcast series Mødegangen. After the conversation, the piece is placed around a baseline that helps you to jointly prioritize what is most important to you right now. The meeting game is a tool you can use to create better meetings together.

How to play the Meeting Game?

There is a piece in the box with a playing guideline for groups and process suggestions, if you choose to play two by two, for example in connection with a walk & talk. The basic idea is that you take turns drawing a card. Whoever draws the card chooses who will answer the question. After this, it is a joint task to place the piece where it is most correct for the whole group.

How long does it take to play the game?

To have a good conversation, 15 minutes is enough, but it is optimal to set aside 45 minutes. The game can be played again and again (even though there are only 12 themes in the game box) and you will find that the conversation gets better and better and more and more nuanced. If there are more than 8 people in your meeting, you should each play with a separate game.

How quickly is a new agreement and thus a new habit achieved?

When the group agrees on one first priority and through that agreement holds each other up so that this is implemented in all future meetings, you will quickly experience an improvement in quality that gives more energy to your meetings. And thus better agreements and more action. How long it takes before this new habit becomes a completely unconscious good behavior is difficult to answer. But when it's there, play again! And find a new first priority that you will improve together.

Are there different ways to play the game?

Yes, we have learned that many find their own way of using the pieces. Someone chooses to use the pieces for walk & talk. Others as an integral part of all everyday meetings. For example, a group chose to share the pieces between them at the end of each meeting and then each person had the task of immersing themselves, listening to the Podcast episode, etc. and bring that behavior into the next meeting, where they again ended by drawing a new checker for the next time.

Can anyone just jump into playing the game?

Yes, regardless of the organizational level at which you meet, the pieces are the basis for a good conversation about your cooperation. It requires nothing more than the will and desire to invest some time in better meetings.

Can it be sensitive to introduce and play?

It is not sensitive to introduce the game. There are no requirements for the depth of the answers to be given. For most, it turns out that the conversation gets better and better the more times the game is played.

Do you also offer workshops?

If you want to immerse yourself more in how you can optimize your everyday meetings, is there more help? BetterMeetings offers a 3-hour workshop with facilitated conversations about your everyday meetings. At the workshop, we delve into your meeting culture and identify your concrete needs for adjustments. In addition, there are concrete tips and tools to succeed with the improvements in practice after the workshop. The meeting facilitators are Mette Ploug Meineche and Wenche Strømsnes.