Flash sessions make you effective
A flash session is a short meeting, usually only 10 or 15 minutes in length, with start and end times set in stone. They are all about spur of the moment, top of your mind, gut reaction type thinking. Unhindered by doubt and second-guessing. It is brainstorming extra ordinaire!
The ideal place for a flash session is on neutral ground, i.e. not in anyones office or even in a meeting room. The best space is one where people can stand rather than sit down (sitting down takes time and is passive) and that is commonly shared by everyone in the company. Kitchens with high communal tables are perfect!
The person calling the session can do so with reasonably short notice - flash sessions are about action, pace and the “here and now”. Thirty minutes is usually fine.
The agenda is presented in a sentence or two, followed by the “brainstorming”. For example:
“A majority of our most active users have requested the ability to add their own notes next to our video tutorials. We have the technology to do it, the question is how do we implement this on the page?”
The person calling the flash session will take notes and keep track of who said what to make follow-up easy. See this PDF for a useful template.
Key points:
- When you call a flash session, give a one or two sentence description of its purpose in your email together with the start and end times
- At the start of the meeting be very clear about why you called the session, what information you are basing it on, and what you need to achieve
- Repeat the value of spur of the moment ideas
- Take notes
- Start and end on time - be respectful of people’s time
- Follow up with your team members as needed
- At a later date, provide an update to everyone who attended the session (even if their contributions did not have a significant impact on the end result)
The better you manage your flash sessions the more people will want to participate, even if they are busy. The more people want to be part of your sessions, the better their input will be. And if an occasional session ended up with little or no impact on the final result, well, it was only 10 or 15 minutes of a person’s time.
