Plan With Purpose: The POP Framework for Effective Meetings

What if every meeting you planned had a clear purpose, a focused outcome, and left everyone energized instead of drained? Today, we’ll show you a simple framework to make every gathering count.

Tired of meetings that go nowhere? 

In this episode of the Practicing Connection podcast, Coral and Jessica reveal how the POP (Purpose, Outcome, Process-plus People and Preparation) framework can transform your meetings from time-wasters into powerful, purposeful gatherings. 

Jessica walks you through each step of the POPPP approach, shares real-world examples, and explains why starting with purpose changes everything. 

Whether you’re planning a team meeting, a project kickoff, or just your next agenda item, this episode will help you design meetings that matter. 

Plus, get a downloadable resource to put the POPPP framework into action right away!

Resources to help you have great meetings:

Wharton Psychologist Adam Grant: Use the 4 Reasons Rule to Decide If a Meeting Is Worthwhile

Transcript

CORAL OWEN: [00:00:00] Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I'm Coral, my co-host Jessica is here as well. Today we're going to be talking about planning our meetings with purpose, and Jessica's going to be sharing a practice with us. Jess, how are you today? 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I'm doing pretty great. I've actually been spending today, specifically, I've been spending a fair amount of time just spring cleaning my files.

I started doing it yesterday and then today I couldn't get it off my mind, so I went right back to it. This rarely happens because I don't really enjoy moving files around and organizing them, so it's really been a big job, but I've been finding files that I thought I no longer had access to. Turns out that I tend to make copies of files that I think I'm going to lose access to so that I'll have future access to them.

So it's actually been [00:01:00] really helpful to some of my current projects, to be able to go back and look at something that I wrote a long time ago and incorporate some of that thinking into my current work. So even though the task is kind of mind numbing to me, I've actually been able to find some nice surprises in the middle of it that.

CORAL OWEN: So relatable. It's so funny, I was actually just talking with a friend this morning about organizing our homes and offices and other spaces, and kind of the angle that we're getting down the wormhole about is just. Laughing at how much activation energy it feels like it requires to move, yes, the needle on some of these things, but also it brings so much energy, like in the form that you're just saying, of finding inspiration from things that you've done in the past.

But I also find that too, once I've kind of moved through that, you know, purging and reorganizing and sort of putting things in their proper place, it brings me so much energy once it's sorted. 'Cause that like subconscious mental load I always personally seem to carry, it seems to like dissipate and [00:02:00] free up some brain space after it's all done.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. Absolutely. I really appreciate the work that's been put into making searches like in our file systems, making search really useful, and it still stresses me out to have everything, you know, it's like a baseline way in the background stress, but to know that I don't actually know where everything is because.

It's just this like dump of files in one spot, and so I do feel more every time I'm deleting a file or moving a file, I just feel a little bit lighter.

CORAL OWEN: I am feeling inspired to go do this to my workspace on my desk now when we get finished recording, oh man. 

Well, we would love to hear what you all are learning, what's inspiring you, and if you'd care to share what's inspiring you, you can click send us a message at the top of the description of this episode.

And when you click the link, your text messaging app will open and you'll see a seven digit number in the words “Do not remove.” Just type your message after that and click send. If you're listening on the computer, you can instead email [00:02:00] us at practicingconnection@oneop.org. So we'd love to hear what's inspiring you at this time.

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CORAL OWEN: All right, let's learn about planning our meetings with purpose. Jessica, can you tell us a little bit more about the practice you'll be sharing, and also why did you choose it?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, absolutely. I give this a very exciting and complex name: Purpose,Process, and Outcome. Probably as far from exciting and complex as you can get.

The name though is kind of deceiving because there's another P: People. And sometimes preparation. So it's kind of like our vowels, AEIOU and sometimes Y. 

So instead, this is PPPO, and sometimes P. So I've actually seen this called the POP framework, so “be POP” or even the [00:04:00] P-O-P-P-P framework. Honestly, I just use whichever P’s are relevant to what I'm applying it to.

But purpose is always relevant and it always comes first. So I actually have been using this practice regularly, I think since about 2020. In fact, I actually use it to plan entire programs, meetings, or I should say when it comes to programs. I use it to plan the framework of the program. I don't use it to plan every single detail, but meetings, and then I even use it to plan individual meeting agenda items.

I've been using it for years, but I never really learned its origins. Someone just told me about it and I started using it and I'm like, “Oh, this is really powerful.” Like, I'm gonna keep using this. So in preparation for this chat, I did a little digging to find out where it came from. It was developed by Leslie Shoul Jaffe and Randall Alford, and I'm really hoping I'm saying their names correct, and it's been iterated on for at [00:05:00] least over a decade.

I found other similar versions as far back as the late 1980s, but the main reason I wanted to share this practice is that it's incredibly simple and powerful for ensuring the design of a project meeting, and even individual agenda items are focused and set up to accomplish what you hoped they would.

CORAL OWEN: This is really exciting and I don't say that ironically, like truly. I think this is gonna be a very impactful practice, even though it sounds very straightforward and simplistic. But before we get into the practice, Jessica, can you briefly describe what each of the Ps are, and the O as well?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, absolutely.

Well, of course starting with purpose, which is where I always start. Like I mentioned a little bit ago, our work should always begin with purpose. Projects need purpose. Meetings need purpose. Agenda items need purpose, emails and communications need purpose as well. 

So taking a moment to pause and ask yourself [00:06:00] why you're doing this project. Why you're planning that meeting or adding that agenda item or why you're writing an email is a huge step toward injecting both meaning and focus into your work. And then once you're clear on the purpose, and I think it's really important to mention, you need to be clear on that purpose, then identify your outcomes.

The funny thing is that I've always outlined this as the third step, so I call this Purpose Process Outcomes, but in most models I find it as the second step, which does make a lot of sense. So that's how I'm gonna present it today. 

So, outcomes are the specific changes or actions you're hoping to achieve when you're clear on your purpose. Identify your outcomes as clearly as you can, so it sets you up for designing the next step, which is process. Process is about how you'll go about meeting the outcomes and ultimately the purpose. What are the steps you'll take? How are you gonna [00:07:00] design the conversation for that agenda item? How are you gonna design the meeting overall?

How will you design the project and how will you compose that email? That's what process answers, how the people part of the session is all about. Who needs to be in the room? Is it your entire team, or is it only a few members of the team? Which perspectives are most critical to understand in order to meet the objectives and purpose?

Some models put this step above Process. I often just incorporate it into my process rather than treat it separately. It just depends on how you wanna approach it. And then the last one is preparation. This was actually a new one to me. I had seen people added into this before, but preparation was a new one.

But I think that depending on your situation, it might be an important one to include and kind of like the people step. I usually incorporate this into my process versus treating it separately, but [00:08:00] you might need to treat it separately.

CORAL OWEN: I love how you can sort of plug and play these different pieces, yeah.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm.

CORAL OWEN: Based on the situation you find yourself in. So, as far as actually going about utilizing this lovely acronym, Jess, can you guide us through on how to implement this and, and how you would go about leveraging it? 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna actually use the example of a planning for a meeting, but like I mentioned, you know, this can be used to plan individual communications and agenda items. Or to outline entire projects. 

I would recommend starting this practice with meetings. Just start planning all of your meetings using it. We'll include a downloadable resource that you can use in the show notes as well. 

So again, of course, we're gonna start with purpose. First, I identify the purpose of your meeting and consider including it on your meeting agenda. There is no better way to solidify a practice than making it transparent. To [00:09:00] identify the purpose of the meeting, you might ask yourself, what is the reason for gathering? What is the purpose of the conversation? You might have multiple purposes that's completely acceptable. For example, you might have “building trust” among the team, along with the purpose of gaining consensus on the direction of a project. Just make sure you're clear about the purpose or the purposes. 

So next, you're gonna consider your purpose or purposes, and you're gonna ask yourself, “By the end of this meeting, I hope to have accomplished…,” and then you're gonna fill in that blank. If you have multiple purposes, make sure to answer this question for each purpose.

So, for example, if one of your purposes was to gain consensus on the direction of a project, your outcomes might include things like, “Everyone understands the project purpose and possible directions. Everyone agrees on the direction for moving forward.” And, “Everyone understands their role and responsibilities on the project.”[00:10:00]

Alright, let's move on to Process. Once you've clearly identified your outcomes, you can plan the appropriate process to match. So using our example, if you need everyone to understand the project purpose, to agree on the direction for moving forward and to understand their role, then you might outline a process that includes things like, “Starting your meeting with a presentation that outlines the details of the project and the different directions under consideration,” and then, “Designing a follow-up conversation to check in to make sure everyone understood those details.” 

Then you might plan an activity to obtain input on the different directions and a conversation or other activity to obtain consensus or prioritization, you know, nominal group voting or other ways of having that conversation.

And then once a direction is chosen for the project, then you might design a conversation where you all, the entire team, outlines the next steps to have everyone [00:11:00] volunteer for the task that best fits their role on the team. So this example, I always like to say that whenever we give a practice, we're kind of giving you that exploded diagram, you know, like they do for like the Ikea, putting together IKEA furniture, whatever. You've got that exploded diagram that shows you all the pieces and parts, and so we go through it step by step and it feels a lot more complex. But I gotta tell you, I have gone through a Purpose Process Outcome, or Purpose, Outcome Process activity in as little as a few minutes depending on what I'm working on.

So we are giving you all the details, but I would consider this a really quick two minute activity in a lot of instances. And then make sure as you're going along, make sure that you consider who needs to be at the meeting and what kinds of preparation might be needed as you consider your process. Or again, like I said before, you can separate out people and identify that separately from the preparation, and you can [00:12:00] identify the preparation separately from everything as well.

So it's a really simple process, just what's your purpose? What outcomes do you hope for? What process are you going to use to try to reach those outcomes? Who needs to be involved? What kinds of preparation might you need?

CORAL OWEN: Again, I just love how much you can dial in or switch around whatever pieces you need to suit the goals and situations you're in.

So thanks so much, Jessica, for walking us through that. That was really, really interesting and I can't wait to try and implement this in my own work. 

Alright. Well that is it for this episode. Thank you all so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, click the share button to your podcast app and share it with a friend or a colleague. We will be back next week with a new episode. Until then, keep practicing.

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, U. S. Department of Defense, under award number 2023-48770-41333.