Activation: Bringing Strategy to Life
In this section, we define the core terms and processes of strategy activation–how you bring strategy to life in the course of your work every day across the organization.
The Planner
Group Conveners, with the guidance and support of their Sponsors, manage their bodies of work in the Planner. Robust and consistent use of the Planner between full group meetings is essential to the JustOrg Design system and to strategy activation and alignment. It is not optional for Conveners and Sponsors to manage the work in the Planner. Below are the elements of the Planner.
Important Note
Designing effective meetings is an essential responsibility of Conveners.
Conveners can add and plan multiple meetings in advance from the Planner.
Meeting Names (but not topics or notes) are broadcast on reports; these names indicate where the Group is investing its time and attention.
Important Note
Keeping the Action list up to date is an essential responsibility of Convener(s).
Planned and completed Actions are broadcast on reports; this is a key way that Conveners communicate their Group’s strategic contributions and progress.
Important Note
Commitments can only be made during a Group meeting; this list, on the Planner, is so that as they are managing the body of work, Conveners are mindful of what people have committed to and on what timeline.
When a Commitment is labeled, “Ready to review,” it means that the Commitment-maker has checked it as done on their own dashboard and is prepared to update the group at the next meeting.
Important Note
Decisions can only be made during a Group meeting; this list, on the Planner, is so that as they are managing the body of work, Conveners are mindful of what next steps, or Actions, a decision-made may require.
Planned and completed Decisions are broadcast on reports; this is a key way that Conveners communicate their Team or Table’s strategic contributions and progress.
Important Note
Only Conveners and Sponsors can add and delete items on this list. Linked documents can, in turn, be linked to any Meeting Agenda for reference in the discussion. This is also the ideal place to link detailed project or budget docs/apps if the Group is using these.
The Meeting Environment
Effective meetings–whether by a functional Team or a cross-functional Table–are the lifeblood of strategic group work. The JustOrg Design Meeting Environment makes people stronger meeting designers and facilitators as well as more conscious meeting participants. Below are the elements of the Meeting Environment.
Section 1: Meeting Logistics
The first section of the Meeting Environment contains the key facts and logistics about the meeting.
On the left-hand side is easy reference information about the Group itself: its purpose; what it decides, delivers, and recommends; and, who is playing its key Sponsor and Convener roles.
Then, the body of the section contains meeting logistics: the Meeting Name, date/time, physical location or video link, and invitees.
Important Note
Meeting Names are an important indicator of the Group’s investment of attention, so they show up on reports. Always give the meeting a name based on the core agenda topic(s).
Meeting times are sensitive to the user’s time zone and translate accordingly. Group participants will show up on the invitee list automatically. Add other invitees as needed.
Section 2: Meeting Purpose and Agenda Topics
The second section starts with Meeting Purpose; it’s critical to articulate clearly why a group is convening. If you cannot identify a purpose for the meeting, as reflected in the Agenda Topics you have planned, then likely a meeting is not necessary.
Then you begin adding and adjusting Agenda Topics. For each Agenda Topic, the person playing lead on the agenda item is listed, as is the amount of time allotted for the item. You can reorder topics as you build the agenda.
Important Note
Watch the red “Remaining minutes” counter in the upper right hand corner of the Agenda Topics list; this helps you plan your timing as you design the meeting.
This is also the section where you link document(s) relevant to this particular agenda for reference.
Section 3: Meeting Results
Decisions and Commitments are the most tangible results of a Team or Table Meeting. They are, quite literally, how strategy is activated. It is critical, therefore, that Conveners, and participants overall, are listening for and capturing decisions and commitments as they arise throughout a meeting. These terms and processes are outlined below.
Important Note
Capture the short articulation of the decision. You can add more details if you like.
Select whether the Team or Table made the decision or an individual(s) in the group made it.
Select the decision method: For decisions made by an individual(s), you can choose either a positional decision or a positional decision with an advice process wherein impacted people were consulted prior to making the decision.
For a Team or Table decision, you can select consent, consensus, or majority. (see screenshot below)
Select which organizational strategy(s) and priorities, if any, the decision helped to activate.
Decisions are broadcast on reports as key expressions of strategy activation.
Important Note
Commitments are how Group participants promise to activate the meeting conversation and decisions in their own work after the meeting.
End every Group Meeting with a review of Commitments made to advance the work between meetings. Then review open Commitments at the beginning of meetings to create momentum and accountability.
Commitments made show up on each person’s personalized dashboard to remind them of their active promises to take action in service to their Group’s progress.
Section 4: Meeting Notes
No need to keep running notes documents in Word or Google any longer! In the JustOrg Design system, notes are kept with the agenda and Meeting Environment in which they are taken. This makes them easily findable on your meetings dashboard and searchable by key words or phrases.
The Meeting Notes section has all editing functions across the top bar, e.g. headers, font sizes, numbering, etc.
In the upper right, you can select a Note Taker in the drop down menu; simply change the name if you are handing note taking duties off to another person.
For ease, you can use the Insert Content into Notes drop down to pre-populate the notes with all meeting invitee names and/or with the Agenda Topics as headers, under which you can take notes along with meeting agenda flow.
Important Note
The Meeting Environment also has a group brainstorming and ideation tool called the Capture Board. Conveners use this tool when an Agenda Topic benefits from people writing in answers to a prompt and the group reviewing results together in real time. More information on how to use this feature is here.
Email Results Now
Once a meeting has ended, the Convener(s) ensure all Decisions, Commitments, and Meeting Notes are captured and accurate and then they hit the “Email Results Now” button. This sends an email to all meeting invitees that cleanly delineates the Decisions made, the Commitments made and completed, the Documents Linked for the meeting discussion, and the Meeting Notes.
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