8 Practical Guidelines for When 8 or More Are Involved

Productive discussions with 8 or more participants are impossible. All too quickly the group breaks down into separate discussions. If you want to include your larger team in a problem-solving activity, follow these guidelines from instructional design consulting experts:

1. Set up teams of 5 or less and provide them with flipcharts and pens.
2. Give the teams a clear objective (e.g, improve our sales process), their task (write down 10 suggestions), and the time available (20 minutes).
3. Get them started and advise as time elapses.
4. Visit each team to give feedback on how they are doing.
5. When time is up, give the teams another 5 minutes to choose a presenter to summarize their ideas in front of the entire gathering.
6. With input from all participants, try to group the ideas into 3-5 main solution categories.
7. End the meeting but arrange a follow-up session. 
8. Summarize and distribute the solution suggestions with a request that everyone prioritize the solutions and come ready to support their conclusions at the next meeting.

Then repeat the guideline sequence with an objective to choose the 2-3 big moves that will result in solving your original objective.