Tactical meetings
The term 'tactical meeting' is used in Holocracy-inspired organisations, and it refers to a meeting held at a fixed frequency - usually weekly. Tactical meetings take place in teams, and their main purpose is to address the problems and challenges that have arisen during the week, so that proactive work can continue. However, tactical meetings can also serve many other purposes: information sharing, follow-up on ongoing tasks, etc., can be included as more or less regular elements of tactical meetings.
It is important to be aware that many of the things that take place in a tactical meeting may just as well take place outside of the meeting. A tactical meeting should therefore be seen as a forum in which the team gets into sync and reaches a common understanding of where the team stands in that given week.
Whereas governance meetings aim to structure the roles in the organisation, tactical meetings focus on using the current division of roles in an effective and deliberate way.
With all tactical meetings, a single staff member has taken on the role of meeting facilitator. The meeting facilitator's primary task is to keep track of the team's checklist and to document its progress.
The process of a tactical meeting:
Check in - Employees check in one at a time and speak freely about what is on each employee's mind.
Follow-up on checklist - The meeting facilitator reads the points on the checklist out loud, to which the relevant roles respond with a "check", or a "no check".
Follow-up on target points - Each role responsible for a target point briefly follows up on progress. The focus here is on the most recent information.
Follow-up on projects - The meeting facilitator takes turns asking in regard to each project "Is there anything new?". The staff working on the project then either replies "nothing new", or tells what has changed since the last tactical meeting. During this point, clarifying questions are welcome, but discussions are a no-go.
Preparing the agenda - Here it is the team-members’ job to bring up any tensions. An agenda of tensions to be addressed at the meeting is prepared.
Resolving tensions - This is where the various tensions on the agenda are addressed. This is usually done by the meeting facilitator asking the question: "What will it take for us to resolve this tension?". The person with the tension can then make a request or a suggestion on how to resolve the tension. Perhaps just putting your tension into words is enough - maybe it requires the team to take a specific action. Once a plan of action to address the tension has been formulated, the meeting facilitator asks "Do you feel we have addressed that tension properly?". If the answer is "Yes", the team proceeds to the last phase of the meeting: the final round.
The final round - The team has nok reached this step until all tensions have been dealt with. Here, each team member concludes with a 'final reflection'. It can be big or small, and everyone's perceptions of the meeting are equally valid. As with a check-in, the final round is not a space for discussion, but one in which staff are free to share their thoughts and feelings.
