Weekly Wonder: Fostering Engagement in Large CUG Meetings

[#1]

Hi CUG members!

This week, we're diving into a new challenge we’ve seen this past month: managing questions from a large attendance while sticking to the agenda during a CUG meeting.

"Dealing with questions from a big crowd and keeping things moving smoothly during our CUG meetings can pose a bit of a challenge. Any tips on managing this scenario effectively?"

Having a large attendee turn out can be exciting, but they also present challenges in maintaining focus and ensuring everyone gets an opportunity to contribute. Below are several effective strategies to assist you in managing this hurdle while enhancing the productivity and engagement of your sessions:  

• Set Clear Expectations: At the start of the meeting, outline the agenda and the goals for the session. Let attendees know when and how to contribute, whether through designated Q&A times or chat functions. 

• Utilize Breakout Sessions: If your platform supports it, consider breaking into smaller groups to discuss topics. This allows for more intimate conversations and encourages participation from everyone. 

• Leverage Timekeepers: Appoint a timekeeper to ensure each agenda item stays on track. This not only respects everyone’s time but also helps in managing discussions effectively. 

• Encourage Pre-Meeting Input: Before the session, solicit questions and topics from attendees. This can help prioritize discussion points and ensure everyone's voice is heard, even if they can't speak up during the meeting. 

• Use Collaborative Tools: Platforms like Confluence whiteboards can be great for capturing thoughts and ideas as they arise. This way, everyone can contribute in real-time without derailing the agenda. 

• Ask for Engagement: Use polls or quick surveys during the meeting to gauge opinions on various topics. This keeps attendees engaged and allows for real-time feedback. 

• Summarize & Follow Up: Conclude the meeting with a recap of key points discussed and any action items. Sending a follow-up message with notes can help attendees feel valued and ensure that the agenda was met. 

By putting these strategies into action, you can setup a well-organized and great experience for all participants, no matter the turnout. For additional resources check out the Atlassian Team Playbook plays for running effective meetings.

We’d love to hear your experiences! How do you effectively handle large meetings? What strategies or techniques are you considering for your upcoming meetings? Share your experiences with any platform you’ve used in the comments below!

Remember, you can submit your questions for future Weekly Wonder posts here or by replying to any of the Weekly Wonder posts.

[Scott Boisvert]

We just had our first CUG meeting with about 75 users in person and online. We had one of our leaders on the virtual platform (Teams), collecting questions that were coming in through the chat (our moderator). We didn't experience a ton of interruptions during the presentation. For the most part our team is pretty good about holding questions or putting them into a chat. Most of what we got was, I didn't catch that can you repeat that (the woes have not having experience walking around with a microphone in hand, where was my ear piece mic?).

[Jackie Budniak]

We launched our first CUG for Jira and Confluence users, focused on utilising Confluence for better management and collaboration for delivery highlighting new features such as Whiteboards and Databases. 

We had an amazing turn out with 963 people attending all virtually due to the nature of our organisation with multiple locations across Australia and New Zealand. We knew in advance that we were expecting a much larger volume of attendees than we had first intended which enabled us to prepare a few things in advance.

Preparation included:

• Ensuring we had out meeting set up in place to run such a large meeting
  • All microphones muted on entry
  • Q&A set up on Teams
  • Only presenters could control the session (to stop any rogue mute buttons or sharing in such a large audience)
• Ensuring we had a clear vision and intent of the session
• A plan for Q&A (what we thought was a good plan) and people to interact
• Interactive polls for the session to get user feedback to engage with a large group.

What we discovered from running this session was the following:

• There is a lot of excitement and a large appetite for these sessions
• People had many questions that were not related to the topics we were exploring taking 
• There was a significant portion of our users who attended the session as forum for all their support all their questions around the company management of Confluence. 
• Whilst we had a plan which we thought would work for questions, it seemed to deviate from the topic and take up time from the planned session.
• We ran out of time for of our engagement polls, and meeting conclusion and summarisation as people had a hard stop.
• Sending feedback forms after a session there is very little engagement

What have we learnt for improvement for next time?

• Communicate upfront and be clear on the intent of the session and what we are focusing on
• Provide channels and information to attendees as to where they can channel questions not related to the focus topic, or users are just wanting support (we have consultation, training, and support channels in place as part of our current service). Follow up after the session on these questions or within the chat if you have the people available to do so.
• Have questions raised in the chat prior to letting people come off mute so that we can manage the conversations more effectively
• Improve timekeeping for the session and allow for time to close the session.
• Ensuring there is time for polls and surveys at the end of the session for more engagement in feedback to improve on our further sessions.
• We also learnt a lot more about our company's needs within our tools and where we can uplift our support documentation and services we provide for our users.

As a result of this session specifically due to the focus on Whiteboards we saw a 200% increase in use from the first week. We have also seen a significant increase in registration for our internal training sessions as this has brought greater awareness.

Overall, our session was a success and was well received by the organisation. From the feedback received our attendees found the session very insightful learning many new things they were not aware about in Confluence that they could take away to improve the management of their day-to-day work and others excited about the new features they didn't realise they had access to.