Check In

What is a check in?

Usually, you just go around the room allowing each person to say a few words - before starting with the agenda items. As variations, the leader might suggest a check in theme, or suggest a quick one-sentence check in, or other variations.

Check In Guidelines

  1. Accept each speaker's words as a gift. (Don’t interrupt, question, analyze, or respond. Just listen.)
  2. Be concise. (Usually, each speaker will complete his or her thoughts in less than a minute. A check-in might take considerably longer if someone is distracted by an intense life experience.)
  3. “Pass” is a valid check-in. (Everyone has the right to reticence. )

Purposes of Check In

  1. To focus on people before focusing on the agenda.
  2. To provide a transition from “the world out there” to the meeting.
  3. To provide an opportunity to explain why you might not be fully focused and “present” (e.g. not feeling well, worried about a family member, frustration…)
  4. To help members become better acquainted with each other, and to learn how to work together better.

Check Out

Meetings can also end with a Check Out - which can also be structured in different ways:

  1. As an opportunity for group members to express how they are feeling "now" (after competing the meeting)
  2. As a means to evaluate the meeting (using any evaluation process suggested by the leader or facilitator)

The same guidelines apply to both Check In and Check Out.

Agenda & Minutes template

The Systems2win Agenda & Minutes template is a Word template that makes it easy to prepare an effective Agenda, and then document meeting minutes right on the same page - using color codes for discussion, decisions, assignments, and future topics.