Inviting People To Meetings

We often need to invite people to meetings, and it's not always evident why.

The acronym PACIFY is a tool we use to specify why we'd like someone to attend a meeting. Each letter stands for a different way someone can show up. Next time when inviting someone to a meeting, try specifying whether you'd like them to:

• Participate: Take part in the process and any decision making involved

• Advise: Suggest a conclusion or decision

• Capture: Take note of key information and/or support the facilitator to enable others to participate more fully

• Inform: Provide relevant information

• Facilitate: Hold the space and help the meeting achieve its purpose

• Yield: As in to produce. To participate with the expectation of high input value. If someone would not usually be expected to attend that meeting, they should only be asked to show up if they would be highly valuable there. Yielding is a higher bar than participating.