12 meeting scenarios and powerful questions to boost your training
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In this article I am going to provide 12 scenarios and 12 powerful questions that can be used during role-play exercises or training on efficient and effective meetings.
For each of these scenarios, the trainer or facilitator will pose questions to the attendees to gather insights on their possible reactions, ideas, thoughts, solutions. The coach should adapt the questions to different classes according to their maturity or level of dysfunction. Sometimes deep diving is needed. Some other times positive responses will need to be provoked or inspired. Other scenarios may serve as simple icebreakers or health checks.
What matters is to have a guided conversation on the topic. Let it happen and let participant connect, reflect, understand. This activity usually boost productivity in the months after.
After each scenario, come up with powerful questions such as:
- What would you do if you were the attendee?
- What should Bob have done?
- How should Alice react to this?
- What would be the best way for the time keeper to contribute to meeting success?
- Would you consider scenario X a successful meeting?
- What alternative action could have been taken to have a better outcome and healthier relation?
And so forth… (more example questions at the end of the article)
Below are the scenarios.
Scenario 1
Alice receives an empty invitation to a meeting from Bob. No agenda, no goal, no attachments, no context. The email subject is “meeting”.
Scenario 2
The meeting starts and after introducing the agenda to the attendees, Alice moves forward illustrating the first point. It’s a virtual meeting with more than 3 attendees.
Charlie joins 8 minutes into the meeting. Charlie doesn’t want to be rude so as soon as he joins, he unmutes and apologises for his delay. He explains that it is not his fault and at least he has a good excuse for it. He has been in meetings all day, one after another, without even time to drink a glass of water. His days are very busy and…
