Check-in Questions for Meetings
Get present.
Checking in is an intentional practice for a team to open a meeting or session.
Check-ins are useful in several ways. Many times, we start meetings already distracted, on our phones or laptops and we literally never check in! When your team’s attention is elsewhere, both collaboration and productivity suffer. Checking-in before a meeting will help your team remove distractions and regain focus. Another thing that happens at many meetings is that they are dominated by one or two people and the rest of the team never speaks. This can be particularly difficult for introverts or shy people, who sometimes never get a chance to speak. Check-ins bring everyone's voice into the room and sets the stage for participation.
Check-ins can be super powerful for team building and connection. As we talk more and more about vulnerability and humanizing work, it’s important to remember that our team members are feeling and sensing beings. Sometimes it helps to have perspective on what’s going on with a colleague to understand a change in behavior or an unusual curt response. And sometimes just knowing that someone is struggling with something, reminds us to reach out to the other person and offer an ear or even help with a project. If I know someone is struggling, I would certainly want to help.
On the other end of check-ins is the closing (or check-out). Many times, we rush out of meetings to get to another meeting and the end feels disjointed. Doing a closing round provides formal closure to the meeting. But what I love the most is using closings to do a mini-retrospective. If you use “What did you notice?” or “What did you learn?”, you can get useful feedback about how the meeting went.
Tips for Check-ins
Check-in and closing processes are not trivial time wasters in our meetings. If they feel that way, something is either missing or needs to be adjusted to relate to the session. The shaping of questions in a thoughtful, purposeful and intentional manner increases the likelihood of the check-in and closing being powerful.
Managing time is crucial for running effective meetings. As the session leader or facilitator, you can introduce different constraints to a check-in to allow for more or less time. Examples are:
“In one word…”
“In two words…”
“In one sentence…”
“Think of three things…”
Focused Check-ins
Here are some examples of Check-in questions that are focused on the meeting itself:
What’s one thing I hope to get accomplished at today’s meeting?
Share a word or two on the intention you hold for today’s meeting to be a success.
What will you contribute to make our session a success?
What value/guiding principle do you bring to the table with you today?
What are you willing to set aside in order to be fully present with this conversation?
Below are check-in questions that you can use for your meetings:
What has your attention today?
What animal represents my mood today?
What song / movie / story represents my mood today?
What is my superhero power pose?
What temperature am I today and a few words on why.
What’s one thing that brings me energy and joy?
What is a recent success you’ve experienced?
What would your superpower be and why?
If you could have someone follow you around all the time, like a personal assistant, what would you have them do?
If you could eliminate one thing from your daily routine, what would it be and why?
If you could go to Mars, would you? Why or why not?
If you could be any animal in the world, what animal would you choose to be?
If you could choose any person from history to be your imaginary friend, who would it be and why?
If aliens landed on earth tomorrow and offered to take you home with them, would you go?
If you could commit any crime and get away with it what would you choose and why?
What was the worst job you ever had?
If you could be on a reality TV show, which one would you choose and why?
Would you rather be the funniest or smartest person in the room?
If you could hang out with any cartoon character, who would you choose and why?
If you could live anywhere in the world for a year, where would it be?
If you could see one movie again for the first time, what would it be and why?
If you could bring back any fashion trend what would it be?
If you could live in any country, where would you live?
What’s one career you wish you could have?
The zombie apocalypse is coming, who are 3 people you want on your team?
What is your most used emoji?
What is your favorite breakfast food?
If you had a time machine, would go back in time or into the future?
What is your favorite time of the day and why?
Coffee or tea?
If you could choose any two famous people to have dinner with who would they be?
If you could do anything in the world as your career, what would you do?
If you could be any supernatural creature, what would you be and why?
If you could change places with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
If you could rename yourself, what name would you pick?
If you could instantly become an expert in something, what would it be?
If you could be guaranteed one thing in life (besides money), what would it be?
If you had to teach a class on one thing, what would you teach?
If you could magically become fluent in any language, what would it be?
If you could be immortal, what age would you choose to stop aging at and why?
If you could choose any person from history to be your imaginary friend, who would it be and why?
If you could have the power of teleportation right now, where would you go and why?
Read more about the purpose and benefits of Check-ins here.
