If you’re a manager or project lead, it might feel like you have to choose between:

A) Being inclusive to different perspectives and concerns in a meeting (but that takes FOREVER)
or
B) Making efficient decisions by involving fewer people (but then risking excluding or dissing people, and/or missing out on important insights from the larger group).

What if you could balance both via the right meeting structure?

Enter the Two Minute 360 structure! Here’s what it looks like:

1. Start with a 2 Min Quiet Brainstorm: Give everyone a clear prompt such as:
   "Let’s take 2 quiet minutes for everyone to write down a Keep or Change: 1 or 2 things you think matter most to keep about ____. And then 2 or 2 things you think matter most to change/delete/update about _______?"
   Or, another prompt could be “Take 2 quiet minutes to write down what questions or feedback you have about ______”
   TIP: Make sure this is truly quiet time - no chatting, no side talk. This allows for the quiet thinkers in the room to get equal time to process or brainstorm (many, many people cannot think well while others are talking). If doing this virtually, let them turn their cameras off so they can fully focus on the task (not on feeling watched :)

2. Kick off the 2 min 360: Go around the room or in alphabetical order and have everyone share their answers to the first part of the prompt (in this example, the Keep part). They only have 2 min each, so be sure to use a phone timer with a clearly loud bell so the timer interrupts people if they go over time. Clarify for them: “We can’t all share everything we wrote – we’d be here forever – so instead share what might be most helpful for the full group to hear. If you run out of time, you can send me other thoughts/ideas later or talk to me about them afterwards of course.”
   Have people hold their comments for each other, as otherwise it can make the whole thing fall apart into chaos.

3. If needed, repeat the 2 min round-robin for answers to the second part of the prompt (in this example, the “change/delete/update” part).

4. Optional: After each round robin you can open it for 10 or 15 minutes of clarifying questions or open “free form” discussion, because at this point everyone has gotten to speak.

5. Next Steps: You’ll want to tell the group specifically what the next steps will be from here, and you have a few options. You can either:
   A) Let them know you took copious notes (or record the meeting) of all the feedback, and this will help you as you make updates to the project/draft. Optional, you can bring the final version back to the team for any final veto's. Clarify that you may need to make hard decisions since it’s usually impossible to incorporate 100% of the feedback this time around.

   B) Assign 2 members who will then take the feedback and create the final draft (i.e delegate the final version) or an FAQ from the questions that came up.

   3) If there’s a decision to make: You can schedule a 30 minute meeting when the group will upvote which items/components make it to the final draft or game plan. This can be done with a google sheet doc or a quick survey form, no need to get too complicated :)

Why the name?

This is called a Two Minute 360 because it truly lets you get a 360 view of the issue, project or weaknesses and opportunities.

What problem does this help solve for?

• If you have overtalkers or people that overly dominate the meeting, this meeting structure magically does away with 90% of this issue. You’ll just want to make sure you use a phone timer and a loud chime that everyone can hear when their time is up. If someone does go past their time, I usually just ring it again or pipe up and say “aaaaand that was time” with a smile on my face :)

• If you have undertalkers or “quiet folks” - this meeting structure also magically addresses this, as often “undertalkers” are just people who hate having to figure out how to get their voice heard, or have in the past been interrupted so many times they gave up, or who aren’t sure how to non-awkwardly chime in. This meeting format helps them know exactly when their turn is and that they don’t have to worry about “taking up time” because everyone gets time! You can also add the rule that people can “Pass” or “Pass until then end” so no one feels forced to talk.

• If you have interruptors or haters this meeting structure allows everyone to know when it will be their turn, so you’ll see interruptions disappear — often people interrupt because their brain fears they won’t otherwise get to share their thought. Ditto with people who often take the “critic” role -the format is designed to diminish the brain’s need to make a comment about everyone’s ideas.

• Low energy or people being checked out: In “free-form” meetings, people see a pattern - that only the loudest or the “quickest thinker” in the room gets to talk (or worse, just the boss) and this has taught them to just check out in meetings (because this power dynamic threatens one or more of their core motivators). 2min260s are designed to support these core motivators, in part by giving “predictable ownership” (the brain knows when and how it will get to have a voice). Also, the fact that everyone only has two minutes to share keeps the energy high, because it is well within the “novelty window” for the brain, so it stays engaged and curious.

Make it work for you

Try it out and tweak if for your specific needs: you can shorten or lengthen the amount of time for sharing to 1 minute or up to 4 minutes for small groups, or break up a larger group into smaller groups for the roundrobins.

Get creative! The goal is to give equal access to feel heard and to leverage the many smart brains you have at your disposal - you can change the meeting structure in lots of ways and still achieve these :)

If you want to see this structure used for more inclusive discussions and group decisions, check out this post.