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The Glossary of Meeting Terms describes terminology and acronyms related to meetings and all the activities we do in those meetings. We've gathered this information from far and wide, so enjoy! And hey — if you have corrections or additions, please don't hesitate to contact us!

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G

The gallery method is a way of generating and building on ideas in a group. To begin, the group reviews a problem statement or challenge. Then, everyone takes 30 minutes or so to sketch 2 or 3 solution ideas. These are posted on the wall where everyone can see them, just like they were looking at art in a gallery. After this review, people retrieve their sketches and refine ideas as inspired by the work in other people's sketches.

The Go Around gives each person a brief turn to speak to the topic, without interruption. Everyone else listens. Also known as a Round Robin, Structured Go Around, or as going “Around the Horn”, this foundational meeting tool ensures that everyone can contribute their thoughts and comments.

For example, invitations at the beginning of meetings typically use a go around. The go around also works well to increase engagement in the middle of a meeting, and to create an opportunity for...

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A Governance Cadence Meeting is used to provide legal and strategic oversight for an organization or contractual relationship.

You can find an introduction to Governance Cadence Meetings in Chapter 21 of our book, Where the Action Is. You may also want to visit the Learn More link, below, for resources to help you plan, run, and troubleshoot the specific meetings your team needs.

Examples Board Meetings... read more

The Gradients of Agreement is a group decision support tool described in The Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision Making. It spells out an 8-point scale for expressing support for a decision.

Whole-hearted Endorsement - “I really like it!” Agreement with a Minor Point of Contention - “Not perfect, but it’s good enough.” Support with Reservations - “I can live with it.” Abstain - “This issue does not affect me.” More Discussion Needed - “I don’t understand the issues well enough... read more

Great Idea. Different Meeting.

Ground rules detail the code of conduct for a meeting, explaining the behavior that's expected of all meeting participants. Ideally, ground rules are created and agreed to by the people participating in the meeting, because groups more easily accept and abide by rules they've set themselves.

Workshop facilitators often establish ground rules at the beginning of the workshop. Established teams, boards, and committees may also adopt a set of standing ground rules that cover all of their...

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Group decision support software helps organizations make decisions using best-practices at scale. Group decision support software features include support for large-scale brainstorming, idea grouping and refinement, ranking, sorting, voting, and otherwise prioritizing alternatives. Advanced applications also includes detailed reporting and sophisticated tools for analyzing input from large communities.

While teams may use group decision support software during a meeting or workshop,...

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Groupthink describes what happens in meetings when a group focuses more on maintaining group harmony than in creating a quality outcome. Group members avoid the critical evaluation of ideas and suppress dissenting opinions in an effort to minimize conflict.

The term "Groupthink" was invented by social psychologist Irving Janis in 1972, who described these 8 symptoms.

Illusion of invulnerability –Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks. Collective... read more