Focus Group Meeting:  Sunday, October 23, 2011   11 a.m. to noon.

Participants:
Pat G., Epcom Chair – computer project manager
Julie B.,  former EpCom member, private business owner
Trudy S., board member,  school administrative consultant
Wendy R., homemaker, EpCom member
Stacy P., former board and former EpCom member, pharmaceutical sales manager

Important background:
The group met immediately after a neighborhood cleanup, so this additional volunteer service had them thinking about their community service (and question how to broaden neighborhood involvement). As two members recently left their service due to commitments that would not allow them to take the time for meetings, they shared a keen interest in making board and EpCom meetings, as well as their joint meetings (held monthly), more productive and shorter.

The focus group  questions were patterned on the ASTD’s Instructional Systems Development  (p. 17). Paticipants were given background on the survey results and minutes analysis, and some suggestions offered by the past president (Friday, Oct. 21 interview) were floated. The group was asked to:

• List what skills are needed for the board to manage meetings more effectively, i.e. – to act on more items while at the same time shortening the length of board meetings.
• Name obstacles to the development of these skills
• Identify the barriers that keep the board from adopting and learning a process to facilitate meetings effectively.

Skills and Knowledge:  —  Board members endorse the idea of a workshop/training session/facilitation guide that would guide them to more productive meetings. They would like to know more about:

• Managing the time for discussion on action items.
• Agenda building: how many items should go on a meeting that its members wish to keep to under two hours? What procedures would ensure that only agenda items  for which there is enough information would make it to the agenda?
• Managing discussion that is not related to action items on the agenda. One member suggested a system such as the “parking lot,” where items are put on a large wipeboard for later discussion – only if time allows.
• Enforcing a tracking system for follow-up items that individual board members are responsible for.
• Organizing a better system to get agenda/previous minutes/ required background to members to shorten discussion time.

Obstacles to development of these skills
• Everyone has a different idea as to how things could be done.
• Members do not have time to engage in training on top of their regular duties.
• Some members may believe it is unnecessary, a waste of time.
• As volunteers, some members may feel it is unfair to ask them to take on training.
• The president, who may need the training the most to facilitate meetings, does not have any time to engage in it.
• If the new process entails extra work outside of meeting times, members will be unable to make time for it.

Barriers to development and adoption of a new process of facilitation:
• Setting time limits:  “We are all buddies,” as one member put it. “So no one wants to say, ‘I’m sorry, but your time is up.”
• Some members want to maintain the social aspects of the meeting.
• Some members do not believe there is a problem with meetings going to long.