All-hands Meetings Guide

What Are “All-Hands” Meetings?

All-hands meetings are company-wide gatherings that help align the team around culture or strategy. They are similar to town hall meetings but they are less formal and more frequent. They are highly effective ways to keep communication transparent and rapid when your startup is changing quickly.

How Often Should You Have Them?

All-hands meetings are expensive meetings when you consider the total number of people attending and their hourly rates. They can be an extremely effective use of time when optimized to build morale, explain changes, align priorities and values, and learn together. Some pre-seed and seed-stage companies hold all-hands meetings every week and then slow it down to monthly once they reach 20+ people. Again, it’s entirely up to you to pick the cadence that will best support your team and goals.

What Should These Meetings Look Like?

It’s always important to provide your team with an agenda and make sure they know what to expect for each all-hands meeting. Perhaps you send along a pre-read or you ask your team to think about something in advance so they are primed and ready to go. You can invite a special guest or host it yourself. Regardless, these meetings are a great way to infuse culture. They can be 30 to 90 minutes long. The shorter the better; it forces you to keep the energy high and the focus clear. People always appreciate a short and poignant meeting.

Think about what you are discussing - but also how you run the meeting can often make or break it. You can have silly rituals and routines or keep it serious and intimate. If you are all physically in the room, think about how you set up the chairs. Where will you sit or stand? If virtual, how will you encourage engagement from everyone?

Here’s a potential agenda:

  • Welcome [5 min]

  • Company updates [5 min] - new people, partnerships, or anything everyone needs to know

  • Strategic discussion [40 min] - 1-2 key issues you want to discuss; context + questions

  • Wrap up + next steps [5 min] Are there any follow-up items? Next steps?

Great All-Hands Topics:

All-hands meetings are most effective when they are structured for engagement so that the full company gets to have a say in shaping the company’s future. After all, this is one of the main reasons why a lot of people join startups is to help build the products and the company.

Some topics you may want to consider for all-hands meetings:

  • Learning about our culture - understanding our values

  • Improving internal communications

  • Meetings norms + expectations

  • Goal setting process prep

  • Strategic shifts and changes

  • Process changes - new hiring protocols

  • Introducing board members to the team

  • “Fishbowl” - Q+A with a customer or client

  • Fishbowl / Q+A with a specific person or team

  • Sandbox - having someone ask the company for help solving a problem

  • Action Learning Group - sharing results or suggestions

  • Employee Resource Group - sharing their work with DIEB suggestions

  • Awards, Ceremonies, and Celebrations