I feel lucky to work with brilliant people that I also consider my friends. I am also fortunate that our team meetings are set up in a way that feels productive and interactive. I will share some details about this special meeting in case you want to adopt some of our practices!
Here's how our weekly team meeting goes:
- We add Trello cards to our team board before the meeting - we have a list for discussion topics and we have a list for "how we're feeling" gifs
- Recently, we've started by having a member of the team share their "user manual." These share-outs help us build trust with one another, and strengthen our working relationships. User manuals have information like:
- Preferred work environment
- Preferred working hours
- Communication preferences
- Things I need
- How I learn best
- Things I struggle with
- Things I love
- If I were an animated gif I'd be...
- Next we cover any discussion topics - these can be about projects we want input from teammates on, upcoming events/need-to-knows, etc.
- After that, we do a round robin where everyone explains the gif they've chosen and why they chose it. It's a great way to express how you're feeling in your work/life. (I've attached the gif I chose this week as an example).
- After this meeting, we also add a "song of the week" to a shared Spotify playlist. This is a new practice, but extremely fun so far!
Other lists on our shared Trello board:
- Rules of Engagement: We have cards that outline how our team feels about and operates for meeting cadence, giving/receiving feedback, celebrating wins, team bonding, and time management.
- Helpful links: A list to drop in links that are useful for the team to have handy.
- True north: We did a team exercise to determine what feelings and goals guide our actions and make us feel fulfilled in our personal and work life. For example, "Belonging" is my true north. Other members of our team list things like "Fulfillment" and "Connection."
