Brainstorming is a method of developing ideas in a group setting. It's used to solve problems, come up with new ideas, and generally explore possibilities. While it may seem like a simple task, there’s often much more than meets the eye when it comes to effective brainstorming. Working through various exercises helps you not only generate ideas but also deeply understand the situation you are looking at. This miniguide includes a list of prompts to help boost your brainstorming sessions. The full guide includes four additional approaches to enhancing brainstorming and a sample brainstorm meeting agenda.

Almost every team has had some sort of regular team meeting and yet many people complain that these team meetings are necessary, but not very meaningful. The time we spend with our colleagues is precious. Our team meetings are an opportunity to move work forward while strengthening the team. This miniguide includes an overview of 2 factors to consider when designing a team meeting and one example meeting structures, formats, and prework to consider using as a model for your team. The full episode guide includes 4 additional factors to consider when designing a team meeting along with 3 additional examples of team meeting structures.

While it’s supposed to be rejuvenating, taking time off can be quite stressful when you’re worried about work the whole time. Whether it’s returning to an overflowing inbox or concern for how your colleagues are getting on without you, stressing while away from the office (or worse, not taking time off!) is detrimental to your wellbeing. This mini-guide includes an excerpt of Principle #3 to help prepare well for vacations. The full guide includes 4 additional principles, plus more tips for Principle 3, to help you effectively prepare for time away. It also includes tips and a template for communicating tasks effectively to your team members so there's no confusion.

We live in an age of distractions. No matter what we're doing, we are constantly at the mercy of internal and external distractions. These attention-breakers have serious consequences on our quality of work. The good news is that wish our growing knowledge of the brain and improved technology, there are specific steps we can take to increase attention and improve focus. This mini-guide includes the "focus matrix" with an excerpt of tips from one quadrant. The full guide includes tips and suggestions for how to focus from all four quadrants of the matrix.

In episode 200, I share 6 of my favorite “lessons learned” from the past four years of hosting The Modern Manager podcast. While each guest has offered insights and wisdom from their years of experience, these six nuggets in particular have stuck with me. This episode guide includes support to implement one of 6 next steps. The full guide includes questions for reflection and suggested approaches for taking action on each of the 6 learning’s next steps. It also includes a bonus activity to help you make the most of The Modern Manager podcast.

Communication is at the heart of collaboration. Any team, whether fully in-person, remote, or hybrid, needs to have effective communication processes. With technology advancing what’s possible, and teams evolving when, where and how they work, we need to actively design how we will communicate in ways that take advantage of new capabilities while streamlining and simplifying our systems so that they are sustainable. This mini-guide contains examples of the type of content you might include in your communications guide. The full guide contains a walk through of the 5 steps in the process for creating a communications guide with your team along with principles to consider as you decide on your tools, methods, and norms. It also includes suggestions for how to optimize various forms of synchronous and asynchronous communications and a short list of my favorite tools.