How do you keep meetings organized? How do you keep people interested and working together for the best results? Here, in four main categories, are some tips to help you make the most of your team’s time and efforts to improve CF care in your community.
1. Show dignity and respect at all times
- Practice not interrupting each other
- Be on time for meetings
- Speak to the agenda item at hand, and plan your words to save time
2. Help all team members to feel valued and free to speak their minds
- Share information
- Make sure your group represents all opinions—people with CF, families, caregivers and administration
- Be open to new ideas
- Practice not defending your points
- State your points as opinion or fact, and cite references when possible
- Stay in touch by meetings, phone conferencing and e-mails—e-mail minutes to those who could not attend a meeting
3. Get involved and stay involved
- Speak up: Real improvement needs your input
- Participate during the meeting, not just in the hallway
- Offer food and drinks
4. Work together, work smart
- Pick someone with facilitating skills to guide meetings
- Try to balance personal priorities with team priorities
- Collect accurate data to help decide your quality improvement goals
- Early on, pick goals that are the easiest to achieve and measure, and goals that excite the team
- Learn and borrow from other quality improvement teams and projects
5. Stay on Track with a Meeting Agenda
An agenda is a great tool to help team members prepare for a meeting and keep it running smoothly. Use the following example as a template for your team. Try to provide a copy for everyone prior to the meeting. Download a sample meeting agenda.6. Make Time for Meeting Minutes
Keeping minutes, or detailed notes, during your meeting is the best way to record your team’s valuable efforts and ideas.
Ask for a volunteer to record the minutes. Make sure everyone receives a copy of them as soon as possible following the meeting, especially those who are in charge of action items.
This is a simple, efficient model you can use for your meeting minutes. Feel free to add as many topics as you need. Download sample meeting minutes.
NEXT: Read some success stories about CF care centers.
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