RE: Guidance for fostering diversity and inclusion for a group face-to-face meeting?

Ian,

Thanks for reaching out to ask.

Interestingly I don't know of any particular guidelines for holding inclusive meetings, or for communicating the right information. They almost certainly exist - so perhaps others on the list will be able to point you in the right direction.

From experience some things to think about are...

Make sure the CEPC is mentioned on the meeting website and explain that everyone is expected to abide by it. Reiterate this at the start of the meeting, with a brief reminder at the start of each subsequent day.

Ask everyone to introduce themselves at the start of the meeting but keep it to name, company name and perhaps job title/area. The trick is to balance it between a useful introduction that helps people get to know each other and the fact that not everyone will be comfortable doing it. 

If there is someone with a visual impairment at the meeting and if everyone moves places on subsequent days, it would be helpful to repeat the exercise - but probably names only. When you can't see faces, the location of people within a room can be an important part of correctly identifying who is speaking.

Watch out for the "in-crowd" effect where one person or a group of people dominate the conversation to the extent it excludes others from participating. This can be difficult at W3C, where it's often one person or small group of people that are most knowledgeable or most invested in a topic, but left unchecked that can exclude people.

Strong queue management is one good way to make sure the conversation includes everyone who wants to be part of it. On the AB we're trying to get into the habit of using "q+ to respond to X", which helps the chair guide the conversation in a way that keeps the discussion flowing in a logical way. This has the added benefit of making conversations easier for people to follow if English isn't their first language or if they find frequent topic switching a cognitive challenge. 
 
When a conversation is in flow the chair should also watch for anyone who is trying to participate but is interrupted or spoken over. Making sure people have the space and time to make their point is a good way to make sure everyone feels included, especially if there are dominant personalities in the room.

Having people introduce themselves by name when they speak. This helps everyone who is new to the group, it helps whoever is scribing, and it also helps anyone with a disability that makes it difficult to recognise voices, faces etc. It's hard to get everyone to remember to do it, but if the chair is firm about it people soon get the hang of it.

If there are people who are Deaf or hard of hearing it is helpful if the room is arranged in such a way that everyone is (more or less) able to see each other - around a table rather than in rows for example. This helps with lip reading and it's good for fostering inclusion generally because facing each other is a good way to enable communication.

If there are materials that will be distributed during the meeting, make sure they're shared at least a week ahead of the meeting. This gives everyone the chance to read them in their own time and preferred ways. Make sure that all materials are in accessible formats too.

That's all off the top of my head. If I think of anything else I'll let you know.
Léonie.

Léonie
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
> Sent: 02 December 2019 13:55
> To: Coralie Mercier <coralie@w3.org>; Léonie Watson
> <lwatson@tetralogical.com>
> Cc: public-idcg@w3.org
> Subject: Guidance for fostering diversity and inclusion for a group face-to-
> face meeting?
> 
> Hi Coralie and Léonie,
> 
> For the Web Payments Working Group’s next face-to-face meeting we’d like
> to encourage diverse participation.
> While we are somewhat limited because Working Group meetings have
> regular participants and that would ordinarily be who attends, it also seems
> like a good opportunity to reiterate goals of diversity and inclusion.
> 
> I am writing to see if you have any recommendations regarding messaging
> for the meeting page (agenda, etc.) and email to participants (and their
> organizations).
> 
> I welcome your suggestions and thank you for this work,
> 
> Ian
> 
> --
> Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
> https://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/

> Tel: +1 718 260 9447
> 
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 3 December 2019 21:23:57 UTC