Planning the meetings everyone attends
An all-hands meeting is the one session on the calendar where the whole organisation is listening at once. That makes it valuable, and it makes the small failures loud: a microphone that cuts out during the hardest question, a stream that freezes for colleagues overseas, an agenda that sends people to the wrong room. These notes are written for the people who keep that from happening.
Standing item: decide what people should know when they walk out, then plan the room, the stream and the questions around it.
Notes on file
- A town hall in a garden: taking the all-hands outdoors without losing the message.
- A harbourside ballroom all-hands: a formal hotel room and a stream for remote teams.
- A town hall in a community hall: a plain, practical room set up well.
- Hybrid shareholder meetings: why an AGM with remote participants needs its own plan.
- Keeping the agenda straight: owning programme content at a multi-track conference.
Who reads these
Internal communications leads, HR partners, executive assistants and company secretaries who have been handed a large meeting on top of their day job. Each note is short, ends with an action for the planner and assumes you will check the specifics with your venue and advisers.
If your session handles attendee registrations or personal details, the Personal Data Protection Commission is the official place to start for general guidance.