Horizons: My Go-to Method for Wrapping up A Session

You know that really long follow-up email that goes out after most meetings? The one full of proposed next steps, assigned roles and responsibilities, and about 10+ people CC’d? Well, this exercise aims to eliminate the need for a follow-up email and asks teams to align on what should happen next before they leave the room.

Enter time horizons: an activity I do at the end of any strategic workshop, Design Sprint, or big meeting as a way to organize what will happen next, and who will be responsible for doing it by when.

If you’re a product or project manager, an account person, or leader who finds themself in a facilitation role, this exercise is one you’ll want to add to the agenda.

The process:

Your group is ready for this step in the session after identifying the outcomes they’re seeking or big projects they want to complete.

The person facilitating should identify at least two time horizons on the whiteboard. Think of them as deadlines or windows by which you’d like to see work completed (e.g., end of next week, end of quarter, end of year, etc.).

Once the horizons are defined, pass out sticky notes to each participant and ask them to write down what needs to be done before each horizon (in detailed steps, if necessary).

Next, let each person individually put their sticky notes on the board before the appropriate time horizon. Allowing people to initially work independently is helpful when you have interesting group power dynamics that could discourage quiet voices or more junior titles from participating.

When all the action items are added, the facilitator should work to organize them, asking for confirmation and driving clarity on any items that are ambiguous.

If multiple people have written down the same item (hooray, they agree that something’s important to do!), group them together and stick the most clearly-written and succinct version on the top of the stack.

After you have an agreed-upon picture of the work to be done and in what order, work with the group to assign owners for the items outlined in the nearest-term horizon until there’s an accountable owner for every item.

Here’s what I love about this exercise:

• It allows everyone to align while they’re still in the room rather than hashing out these important details via a lengthy email thread
• Critical tasks aren’t missed when the team is able to contribute ideas and action items collaboratively (rather than one person dictating a “next steps” list)
• When you allow group members to decide which action items they’d like to champion there’s a lot more buy-in and a lot less work falling through the cracks because they assigned themselves ownership

This method is attributed to my time at GoKart Labs where the idea was cultivated and refined by a group of makers (and probably the best set of colleagues I’ve ever worked with ❤).

If you close your next meeting or workshop with this method, please report back. I’d love to hear how it went!

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