Running a Meeting

Once the meeting has started, you'll find two sets of progress bars at the top of the meeting window.

The large progress bar on top shows the time for the entire meeting. With a quick glance you can see how much time has been consumed and how much time is remaining.

The second set of progress bars on the bottom depict each of your agenda items. The currently selected agenda item will have a bar beneath it on Windows or an outline around it on macOS. As the meeting progresses, the currently selected agenda item will change colors signifying how much time is available:

Gray: This is the normal state and denotes no time warnings or limits are in effect.

Yellow: You have reached your time warning and are running out of allotted time for the agenda item. This threshold can be adjusted via the Time to Warn Before Time Limit setting. This setting can be accessed from the Time Settings (timer) button.

Red: You have reached the time limit for the agenda item. Depending upon the Over Time Limit Action setting you have set, the current agenda item might be expanding in time beyond the original time allotment and reducing time from other agenda items. This setting can be accessed from the Time Settings (timer) button.

Above the meeting buttons, you'll find the agenda section. Each agenda item will have a checkbox denoting whether or not the agenda item has completed. The currently selected agenda item will be highlighted and the corresponding progress bar will have the bar (Windows) or outline (macOS) highlight.

The function of the meeting buttons from left to right are as follows...

i: Pressing this button will bring up a dialog that explains each of the buttons.

Create Invitation (Calendar): This button creates an invitation for the meeting. More information....

Time Settings (Timer): The Time Settings button lets you adjust the notifications, time warnings and action to take when you hit an agenda item time limit. More information...

Restart Meeting (Circular Arrow): Pressing this button will allow you restart the meeting from scratch or only with the remaining time left in the meeting. More information...

Previous Agenda Item (Double Triangles Pointing Left): Use this button to return to the prior agenda item and mark it as uncompleted.

Play/Pause (Single Triangle Pointing Right): During a meeting use the Play button to start the meeting and have it turn into a Pause button. During the meeting if you need to make some adjustments to the agenda items, participants, etc, press the Pause button to perform a live edit. The meeting time and top progress bar will continue, as you're still consuming time. Once you're ready to press the Play button, the time consumed will adjust your uncompleted agenda items based upon your Over Time Limit Action within the Time Settings. More information...

Note: If you reopen a meeting that has ended, the Play/Pause button is replaced with a View Meeting Setup/View Meeting History button. This button will allow you to go back and forth between the original setup of the meeting and the historical data captured during the meeting.

Next Agenda Item (Double Triangles Pointing Right): Use this button to mark the current agenda item as complete and move on to next agenda item.

End Meeting (Square): Once the meeting has ended, press this button to stop the progress bars and mark the meeting as completed. More information...

Tip: You might ponder why you need to press this button, especially if the meeting completed as planned. Sometimes agenda items wrap up early and there's extra time at the end of the meeting for ad-hoc discussions.

Instead of ending the meeting within Summit, mark all the agenda items as completed and let the clock run out, so to speak, while the ad-hoc discussions take place. You can continue to glance at the overall meeting time and top progress bar to see how much time is remaining. And if the discussion gets lively, use Summit's End of Meeting notification to let you know once the overall meeting time is up.

Attachments (Paperclip): This button is used to view and manage meeting attachments. Access these items when building a meeting, during a meeting or after a meeting ends. More information...

Create Minutes (Notes): Once you have pressed the End Meeting button, the Create Minutes button will become active. More information...

Next and moving on from top to bottom of the window, you'll find the Notes section. Use this section to enter your notes during the meeting. Pressing the Magic Wand button will enter the current agenda item title into the notes.

Note: As a reminder, if an attendee is assigned the scribe role within the meeting, this will be added to the notes once the meeting begins. Otherwise if no one is assigned the scribe role, it will be assumed that the facilitator will be the note taker and there will be no comment in the notes.

Finally at the bottom of the window are the sections to track the various aspects of the meeting...

Attendance: Use this tab to take attendance at the start of the meeting for optional inclusion in your meeting minutes. Use the buttons at the bottom to Check all or Uncheck all.

Decisions: This tab can be used to track important decisions within the meeting and who made them. Use the disclosure triangle to select one or more decision makers or teams.

Actions Required: Also known as Action Items, use this tab to track important tasks given during the meeting. In order to help ensure success, there should be one or more people or teams assigned to complete the task. Often these people/teams are called Directly Responsible Individuals or DRIs for short. In most cases, you'll also want to provide a due date, although for some tasks this may be difficult therefore you can leave a due date blank.

Tip: It's important to assign due dates to tasks in order to make sure that there's positive momentum to complete them. Rather than leave this field blank for tasks where a due date can't be defined, instead modify the task to include reporting back to the team with a status update on a defined due date.

Bin List: Use the bin list to track topics to be discussed later. Often times discussions can run into tangental topics that aren't directly related to the agenda item at hand. The referee, or anyone in the meeting, should call this out and these topics can be added to the bin list. If the agenda ends early the team can return to the bin list for discussion topics until the meeting time runs out. Or the facilitator can choose to turn these binned items into agenda items at a future meeting.