How to work with Guided Temperature Meetings

In short, how does it work?

The host, usually a manager or a system administrator, starts the meeting and the presenter's view opens up in Winningtemp and all participants can join through the web or the mobile app. The host shares the presenter's view from his/her screen, either directly in the room or through screen sharing. The group starts to discuss the suggested topics and agrees to one or several commitments.

Do I need to come up with a meeting agenda myself?

No, Winningtemp has your back and suggests meeting topics in regard to the temperature in the nine categories. For each category, there are also inquiries (appreciative inquiries) to help you facilitate the meeting. Do you want to pick an agenda yourself? No problem, the Host can choose custom topics to focus on if you need to.

How are topics suggested?

We start by highlighting the categories that deviate the most from the Winningtemp index. Although the emphasis is on the categories that you can improve, you will also get suggestions on categories where you currently have a high temperature. Hold the cursor over a topic to see why that specific topic was suggested.

Meeting format

Each temperature meeting starts with a follow-up in regard to the previous meeting to assess the progress and relevance of previous commitments. When working with inquiries; you start by reflecting by yourself (not anonymously), followed by an open discussion around everyone’s input. Each topic is concluded when you decide on the team’s commitments going forward. The meeting ends with a summary of all the team’s commitments.

On-site meetings

For the best experience when you have the meeting on-site, we recommend that the presenter view is shared on a large screen for everyone to see. Participants can then reply to the inquiries in Winningtemp using their mobiles or computers.  If there’s no screen available for sharing, the presenter's view could be shared in a video meeting instead, and participants can see the inquiries and reply using their own computers. 

 
Remote meetings

In a remote/partly remote meeting, share the presenter's view with the team in a video meeting.

What do I need to prepare before a Temperature Meeting?

The good thing about our guided temperature meetings is that you don’t need to prepare anything before it starts. The Appreciative Inquiry framework involves focusing on an organization's or team’s positive attributes, strengths, and successful experiences to create a more desirable future. You are guided through the meeting with a set of questions which help you generate ideas and commitments.

Do you want to prepare the meeting agenda yourself? The host can choose topics, categories or inquiries, to work with 5 days before the meeting if you want to. However, as mentioned above, you don’t really need to prepare this beforehand. We suggest the category for you, and the inquiry can be determined during the meeting.

If the host decides to make the topics available beforehand, the participants can take part in the inquiry before the meeting and start to reflect on it. You find it in the meeting agenda for your upcoming meetings.

Tell me more about Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry is a positive and strengths-based approach to organizational development and change management. It involves focusing on the organization's or team’s positive attributes, strengths, and successful experiences to create a more desirable future. So instead of looking at problems, we focus on the positives and the moments when things went really well. Appreciative Inquiry aims to inspire and engage individuals within an organization in a collaborative process of inquiry, discovery, and transformation.

Temperature meetings in Winningtemp are built with a set of appreciative inquiries for each category to guide teams toward more meaningful and productive discussions. The team can pick and choose the appreciative inquiries available during the temperature meeting. They can also write their own inquiries if needed. Discussions and commitments are facilitated by the use of these appreciative inquiries.

What is a Commitment?

A commitment is something that you pledge to do together as a team during the Temperature Meeting. This could be a set of actions to take, changes in behaviours, or changes to your way of working in the team. It could be anything that takes you in the direction of being a more effective and engaged team.

How are Commitments different from Actions?

Commitments are formulated together as a group during Temperature Meetings with your team, they have no predefined format because they should be able to be many different things. The most important thing is that they are decided together and that it's easy to get started with a commitment. You can write the details about the commitment in the meeting itself, or on a later occasion. You can also turn a commitment into an action in Winningtemp to further track its progression. 

How should we work with Commitments in our team?

It's everyone’s collective responsibility to focus on the commitments that you agreed upon. Every subsequent Temperature Meeting starts with a follow-up of the commitments that you made in the previous meeting.

All commitments, active and closed, are visible in a list view under Temperature Meetings to make it easy for you to get an overview of them. You can also find them in the Actions tab.

How frequent should the Temperature Meetings be for best results?

Working with temperature needs to happen in real time, and should be a continuous process for the team. We recommend that you have a temperature meeting at least once every 30 days, but preferably as often as you need it.