what to write for artist research gcse

Teaching Resource

Research skills and exam support

Designed to inspire ideas for research in the gallery, classroom and everyday life

About How to Research

Research brief, how do artists research, example discussion points and activities.

This resource was developed to offer creative research strategies to support a broad range of Art & Design curriculums for GCSE, BTech, and A-Level students.

How to Research models how artists can carry out research, with a specific focus on writing, drawing and looking. We invited three artists to respond to a project brief, providing prompts that encouraged them to draw connections between their particular thinking and approach to research, and their art-making practice.

The contents page of each booklet details this brief, encompassing methods of writing personal responses and collecting images and inspirations to compile research files; your students can discover new ways of approaching these tasks through the artists’ responses. We have also included discussion points and activities throughout the booklets, prompting students to further their research in their own ways.

Donald Rodney's sketchbook (Tate Archive ref: TGA 200321)

Used with permission

This activity invites your class to build research files of their own, gathering and developing their ideas to support their ongoing coursework. The prompts provide a framework that you can adapt in numerous ways, acknowledging your expertise in best supporting your pupils’ needs.

Ask your students to each find the following:

• An image of something they already have, that they currently use to made art
• An image of their own artwork
• An image of an artwork from the Tate collection that inspires them
• A quote or textual reference that inspires them

Then, challenge them to respond to the following questions, through writing, annotation, drawing, making, or more.

• What connections can they find between the images and texts they’ve chosen?
• Explain a process they use to help them process ideas and inspirations.
• What question would they ask an artist about their research? Which artist(s) would they ask it to?

Encourage your students to collect all the work they produce through this project in a sketchbook or folder. Where could they go next? How might this research influence their own artmaking?

Image from Drawing as Research  

© Sovay Berriman

Drawing As Research

Go for a walk. As you are walking, think of a question or a problem you are trying to resolve in your art and see if you can generate any new answers. Does the physical process of walking stimulate your thought process in the same way it does Berriman’s?

Make a drawing that explores your original question or problem, and any new ideas generated. Think about how you might relate this drawing to any other drawing, or artwork, you have made previously. Use this connection to make a new work, and so on. Record the connection between the works as you go.

By walking to produce ideas, Berriman might be considered to be engaging with a ‘non-art’ process to generate art. Are there any non-art processes that help you think through ideas, and if a non-art process generates ideas for artworks, is it still a non-art process?

Looking As Research

Take a photograph of a photograph, either on a screen or a printed picture. What do you see now that you couldn’t see in the original image? What happens if you repeat this process – how does the actual photograph itself (not what it is picturing) start to become visible, and is this interesting to you? How do you identify what is of interest to you?

How quickly do your interests change? Can you map out your changing interests through artworks/artists you have been drawn do? What can you learn from your map about the way that you are currently looking at art and what questions does the map raise for you?

Writing As Research

Get a pile of Post-It notes, record cards or just small scraps of paper. On each separate Post-It, card or piece of paper write down one of the ideas that you are currently working with in an essay, an artwork you are making, or just things you are thinking about. These can be quotations, single words that come to mind, questions, names and anything else you can think of. Stick them up on the wall in a way that makes sense to you. What new relations have formed? Leave them up overnight, or for a longer period of time, and then come back and rearrange them. How does this reordering change the meaning of the words? What new relations have formed? Write down new words or ideas that come to mind and add them to the wall.

This can be repeated for a week, a month, a year…

Use your Post-It wall as a starting point for other forms of writing; poems, lists, stories, scripts, descriptions… Now use someone else’s Post-It wall to do the same.

How to Research booklets are also available to pick up at the Schools Desk at Tate Britain and Tate Modern.

To further support your students at exam time see our Exam Help pages for more ideas and inspiration.

Bring Your Class to Tate

School visits to tate britain, school visits to tate modern.

The Art Teacher

Art Lesson Ideas, Plans, Free Resources, Project Plans, and Schemes of Work. An 'outstanding' art teacher in Greater Manchester. Teaching KS3 and KS4 art and design.

Grade 9 GCSE Art Examples

As it is so challenging for students to achieve a Grade 9 in GCSE Art & Design, I thought it would be useful to share some Grade 9 Art project examples. If you’re wondering how to get a Grade 9 in GCSE art, these projects might be able to help!

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*UPDATE!* I have added more full Grade 9 Art & Design projects to this presentation – there are now FIVE projects to have a look at. Enjoy!

I usually have students work on design sheets so these are photographs of all the design sheets and any final pieces the students made. I was so impressed with their work and with how much effort the students put in! Anyone who teaches (or has done GCSE art) will know it is REALLY difficult to get the top grades and takes a lot of hard work.

There are five Grade 9 full project examples on the presentation, including sheets of student’s secondary and primary research and artist research. As I tell my students, the focus should always be on the quality of their work rather than the quantity in order to achieve high grades in art. Although, of course, they need have enough work to meet all of the four assessment objectives (I currently teach for the AQA exam board.)

I have also included all of the student’s observational / working drawings, development work, experimentation, plans and final pieces. I have added close up images of the Grade 9 observational drawing work so you can use the presentation to show your own students if you wish.

I have chosen very different exam projects so you can see a full range of techniques and approaches to the different exam questions. The projects are a mix of coursework and the externally set exam by AQA.

I have added titles to each of the slides in ‘student speak’ so your students can clearly see examples of what each stage of a Grade 9 art project looks like. All of the annotations should be legible too!

Finally, I have included photographs of all of the final pieces completed in the 10 hour exam / controlled assessment. As well as the final pieces, I have included close up images so you can clearly see the details and quality of the work. In total, there are 85 slides with examples of Grade 9 GCSE art projects.

Since some of these art projects were for the externally set exam, the marks made up 40% of the total grade. All students achieved a Grade 9, but that is also including the 60% coursework component.

That means that not every single drawing or experiment in the presentation is a grade 9 . This is important as students can refine their work by recognising what has not gone well and move forward using only their best work! This is tricky to get across to students but hopefully using this presentation will help. I have used it with my own classes and found it useful.

If you would like a copy of the Grade 9 Art presentation for free, just leave a comment and I will share it with your email address! Thanks, I hope this is useful 🎨

Could you make a small donation to help keep this site free? It is getting more expensive to keep online – thanks!

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206 thoughts on “ grade 9 gcse art examples ”.

Hi! Looks amazing, would love to have a copy if possible as I am currently doing my exam project.

Thanks so much.

Like Liked by 1 person

Hi, yes of course! Hopefully this will help your students through their exams – it’s a stressful time.

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Superb ideas

Hi , this is really helpful advice and resources. Thanks for posting. Could you please send me a copy?

Hi, you’re welcome! Thanks for your message 🙂 I just shared it.

Hi, thanks! I still use it too with my students 🙂 I’ve just shared it!

These resources are WONDERFUL! Thank you for posting them.

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Really find this site useful! Could I please have a copy to show my GCSE Art students.

I’m really glad it’s helpful 🙂 I just sent the presentation.

Hi , I would love a copy to show my students- thanks.

Hi, no probs – I just sent it over 🙂

Great! thanks so much, a wonderful resource.

This is great and useful to show the students, especially the not everything has to be perfect!

Thanks for your comment! I just sent it over – hopefully it’s helpful for your students. I use it all the time with my GCSE Art classes 🙂

This is really beautiful work! It would be really beneficial to show my students the jouney and development of some great projects 🙂

Hi – I just shared it, I hope your students find it useful! Mine tend to get a better understanding of what is expected when I go through this 🙂

I love this! Would I be able to be sent a copy?

I’m glad you like it 🙂 I have just shared it with you!

this looks so helpful! My daugher is near the end of year 10 and woudl love to see the presentation

I just shared it – I hope your daughter finds it useful!

This would be really useful for my daughter in Y10.

This is amazing and would help my students a lot. Could you please share the presentation with me?

Hi, yes of course, I just sent it 🙂

Many thanks for this 🙂

Love your work – I looking to support my daughter whose work is incredible but she’s not finding her teacher very supportive

I have just shared it – I hope your daughter finds it helpful!

Really well put together. I am sure it will be helpful for many students. Thank you so much for sharing.

Thank you! I just sent it over 🙂

Thank you for sharing. So so helpful. If not too late please could I see a copy of the full presentation?

You’re welcome! And it’s not too late 🙂 I just shared it.

Hi, can I please get a copy? Thank you.

Hi, yes of course – I just sent it 🙂

Very comprehensive and informative. Brilliant post. New to the art teaching world so this would be amazing to have a copy to show students.

Thanks so much for your comment! I’ve just shared it, best wishes for your new career!

This is so inspiring! I am a new teacher and I’d love a free copy of the grade 9 art presentation. Thank you

Thanks for your comment, I’m glad you find it helpful! I just emailed it to you 🙂

Fabulous stuff, would love a copy of the presentation to support a friend’s daughter who is doing her Art GCSE!

Hi, no problem, I just sent it! Best of luck to your friend’s daughter 🙂

Hey there, thank you for such an excellent resource, this would be great in helping me support my daughter who is doing her Art GCSE.

Thanks for your comment! I just sent it – best of luck to your daughter 🙂

This is very useful. Please could we have a copy. Thx!

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Please can you send a copy of the gcse presentation, thanks

I have just shared it with you – thanks!

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I have just shared it 🙂

Sorry I got a message to say it couldn’t be sent to your email address – please double check you’ve given the correct email?

Hi! We would love a copy of your presentation. It would be so helpful!

I just sent it – hope it helps!

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This is really helpful. Please may I have a copy?

Hi, yes of course, I have sent it over.

Hi, please could I get a copy for my son? He has not had an art teacher for most of his GCSE time and is getting very concerned about completing his coursework! Many thanks

Sorry to hear that – hopefully this will help him out a bit 🙂

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I have just shared it with you – enjoy!

Such a great inspiration for teachers, parents and pupils…thank you for taking the time to put all this together xx

Thanks so much, glad you appreciate it 🙂 I just shared it.

Please could I have a copy? Thanks so much.

Yes, I have just shared it 🙂 hope it’s helpful!

Hello! So pleased to come across these examples. Please could you share the full set with me?

Thanks! Happy to help out, I just sent them over 🙂

Hi, I would like a copy please. Thank you.

No problem, I just shared it.

Please could I have a copy? I would find it very useful, thankyou.

Thank you for doing this, some fabulous original ideas. I would love a copy please, I think it will help a number of students looking for more information.

Thanks! It’s all the student’s work so credit to them 🙂

Could this non-arty mum have a copy please? It would be very helpful, thanks.

Of course! And there’s no such thing as non-arty 🙂 there’s no right or wrong!

This is extremely helpful! Please could I have a copy sent across? Thankyou in advance 🙂

I have just sent it over, hope it helps you out!

Hi! What a wonderful idea to share examples in this way as it’s so difficult to know what to do to achieve the top grades! Please could you send me the slideshow? Many thanks!

Thanks for your comment! I have just shared it, I hope it’s helpful.

hi these are great, could I get a copy? X

Thanks! I have sent it to you 🙂

this is invaluable, would be ever so grateful of a new copy as an ECT. Many thanks

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I have just sent it – I hope it helps!

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This looks amazing, could I have a copy, please? It will really help guide my students through their GCSEs

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Making and teaching art. Based in Manchester. View all posts by art_teacher_mcr

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‘How to do Artist Research’: new worksheet

• by AMIMAMIM
• November 6, 2019 April 8, 2020

I’ve created a straightforward guide to Artist Research aimed at KS4 students. It provides a clear template for presenting investigations into other artists work in an appropriate way, and to a high standard.

Using this worksheet frequently will get students in the habit of presenting excellent artist research. And you can use the handout at KS3 and KS5, depending on the ability of your groups.

On the first page of the worksheet, students fill-in the information they find from various sources. In addition to the boxes to complete, there are prompts to encourage relevant responses. The second page gives 20 questions to prompt thoughtful analysis.

I’ve avoided generic questions that tend to produce banal answers. Instead the second page of the worksheet provides thought provoking questions. For example: “What is the most important thing about the artwork? Why do you think this?” How big is the artwork? Does this effect the impact of the work on the viewer? How?” “Is there anything strange or shocking?” This resource is available through TES ( click here ) or TpT ( click here ), or you can download by clicking the image above, or visiting my resources shop .

I have plenty more resources available to download which support artist research: poster to widen and improve vocabulary artist research poster to display bookmark infographic with artist research steps

In addition, you may also be interested in my worksheets on various artists. These provide information as well as written and practical activities in response to their work; more about them here . They make great handouts for cover work, extension activities, whole class or homework…

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Artist Research Page Do’s and Don’ts

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Artist Research Page Do’s and Don’ts!  If you get your students to create artist research pages, you will want them to avoid some common pitfalls.  All my students have this ‘Artists Research Page Do’s and Don’ts’ stuck in the back of their sketchbook.  It really does raise attainment!  This one-page resources is a simple list of do’s and don’ts.  For example, don’t refer to an artist by their first name only, don’t use pictures the size of stamps, do create an even spread of images and text.  There are 16 do’s and don’ts and as this is an editable Word document you can edit and update this to suit your own needs.

Tip:  The first time you get students to do a research page, get them to read this as a class.

Assessment:  Use this list as your assessment criteria.  I have printed this on coloured paper and stapled it to their sketchbook page (as their pages are too beautiful to write on!) and ticked or underlined points.  What a time-saver!

The Arty Teacher

Sarah Crowther is The Arty Teacher. She is a high school art teacher in the North West of England. She strives to share her enthusiasm for art by providing art teachers around the globe with high-quality resources and by sharing her expertise through this blog.

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Sarah Crowther – The Arty Teacher

I set up The Arty Teacher because I have a passion for my subject that I want to share with other art teachers around the world.

I have been a high school art teacher for over 20 years, so I understand what it’s like to be in front of a class of students, often with very different abilities and attitudes.

I wanted to develop resources that would help teachers to bring out the best in every student in every class. I also wanted to free-up staff from time-consuming lesson preparation to let them focus instead on delivering exciting, motivating, dynamic lessons, supported by excellent resources.

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Faculty Publications: Chicano and Latino Studies - 2024

Ramirez, Loretta. “Archival Quest: Research Writing Pedagogies to Recover Historical Rhetorics that Centralize Latinx Voice & Inquiry.” Composition Studies, vol. 51, no. 1, Spring 2023, pp. 91-110 .

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If we’re all so busy, why isn’t anything getting done?

Have you ever asked why it’s so difficult to get things done in business today—despite seemingly endless meetings and emails? Why it takes so long to make decisions—and even then not necessarily the right ones? You’re not the first to think there must be a better way. Many organizations address these problems by redesigning boxes and lines: who does what and who reports to whom. This exercise tends to focus almost obsessively on vertical command relationships and rarely solves for what, in our experience, is the underlying disease: the poor design and execution of collaborative interactions.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Aaron De Smet , Caitlin Hewes, Mengwei Luo, J.R. Maxwell , and Patrick Simon , representing views from McKinsey’s People & Organizational Performance Practice.

In our efforts to connect across our organizations, we’re drowning in real-time virtual interaction technology, from Zoom to Slack to Teams, plus group texting, WeChat, WhatsApp, and everything in between. There’s seemingly no excuse to not collaborate. The problem? Interacting is easier than ever, but true, productive, value-creating collaboration is not. And what’s more, where engagement is occurring, its quality is deteriorating. This wastes valuable resources, because every minute spent on a low-value interaction eats into time that could be used for important, creative, and powerful activities.

It’s no wonder a recent McKinsey survey  found 80 percent of executives were considering or already implementing changes in meeting structure and cadence in response to the evolution in how people work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, most executives say they frequently find themselves spending way too much time on pointless interactions that drain their energy and produce information overload.

Most executives say they frequently find themselves spending way too much time on pointless interactions.

Three critical collaborative interactions

What can be done? We’ve found it’s possible to quickly improve collaborative interactions by categorizing them by type and making a few shifts accordingly. We’ve observed three broad categories of collaborative interactions (exhibit):

• Decision making, including complex or uncertain decisions (for example, investment decisions) and cross-cutting routine decisions (such as quarterly business reviews)
• Creative solutions and coordination, including innovation sessions (for example, developing new products) and routine working sessions (such as daily check-ins)
• Information sharing, including one-way communication (video, for instance) and two-way communication (such as town halls with Q&As)

Below we describe the key shifts required to improve each category of collaborative interaction, as well as tools you can use to pinpoint problems in the moment and take corrective action.

Decision making: Determining decision rights

When you’re told you’re “responsible” for a decision, does that mean you get to decide? What if you’re told you’re “accountable”? Do you cast the deciding vote, or does the person responsible? What about those who must be “consulted”? Sometimes they are told their input will be reflected in the final answer—can they veto a decision if they feel their input was not fully considered?

It’s no wonder one of the key factors for fast, high-quality decisions is to clarify exactly who makes them. Consider a success story at a renewable-energy company. To foster accountability and transparency, the company developed a 30-minute “role card” conversation for managers to have with their direct reports. As part of this conversation, managers explicitly laid out the decision rights and accountability metrics for each direct report. The result? Role clarity enabled easier navigation for employees, sped up decision making, and resulted in decisions that were much more customer focused.

How to define decision rights

We recommend a simple yet comprehensive approach for defining decision rights. We call it DARE, which stands for deciders, advisers, recommenders, and executors:

Deciders are the only ones with a vote (unlike the RACI model, which helps determine who is responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed). If the deciders get stuck, they should jointly agree on how to escalate the decision or figure out a way to move the process along, even if it means agreeing to “disagree and commit.”

Advisers have input and help shape the decision. They have an outsize voice in setting the context of the decision and have a big stake in its outcome—for example, it may affect their profit-and-loss statements—but they don’t get a vote.

Recommenders conduct the analyses, explore the alternatives, illuminate the pros and cons, and ultimately recommend a course of action to advisers and deciders. They see the day-to-day implications of the decision but also have no vote. Best-in-class recommenders offer multiple options and sometimes invite others to suggest more if doing so may lead to better outcomes. A common mistake of recommenders, though, is coming in with only one recommendation (often the status quo) and trying to convince everyone it’s the best path forward. In general, the more recommenders, the better the process—but not in the decision meeting itself.

Executers don’t give input but are deeply involved in implementing the decision. For speed, clarity, and alignment, executers need to be in the room when the decision is made so they can ask clarifying questions and spot flaws that might hinder implementation. Notably, the number of executers doesn’t necessarily depend on the importance of the decision. An M&A decision, for example, might have just two executors: the CFO and a business-unit head.

To make this shift, ensure everyone is crystal clear about who has a voice but no vote or veto. Our research indicates while it is often helpful to involve more people in decision making, not all of them should be deciders—in many cases, just one individual should be the decider (see sidebar “How to define decision rights”). Don’t underestimate the difficulty of implementing this. It often goes against our risk-averse instinct to ensure everyone is “happy” with a decision, particularly our superiors and major stakeholders. Executing and sustaining this change takes real courage and leadership.

Creative solutions and coordination: Open innovation

Routine working sessions are fairly straightforward. What many organizations struggle with is finding innovative ways to identify and drive toward solutions. How often do you tell your teams what to do versus empowering them to come up with solutions? While they may solve the immediate need to “get stuff done,” bureaucracies and micromanagement are a recipe for disaster. They slow down the organizational response to the market and customers, prevent leaders from focusing on strategic priorities, and harm employee engagement. Our research suggests  key success factors in winning organizations are empowering employees  and spending more time on high-quality coaching interactions.

How microenterprises empower employees to drive innovative solutions

Haier, a Chinese appliance maker, created more than 4,000 microenterprises (MEs) that share common approaches but operate independently. Haier has three types of microenterprises:

• Market-facing MEs have roots in Haier’s legacy appliance business, reinvented for today’s customer-centric, web-enabled world. They are expected to grow revenue and profit ten times faster than the industry average.
• Incubating MEs focus on emerging markets such as e-gaming or wrapping new business models around familiar products. They currently account for more than 10 percent of Haier’s market capitalization.
• “Node” MEs sell market-facing ME products and services such as design, manufacturing, and human-resources support.

Take Haier. The Chinese appliance maker divided itself into more than 4,000 microenterprises with ten to 15 employees each, organized in an open ecosystem of users, inventors, and partners (see sidebar “How microenterprises empower employees to drive innovative solutions”). This shift turned employees into energetic entrepreneurs who were directly accountable for customers. Haier’s microenterprises are free to form and evolve with little central direction, but they share the same approach to target setting, internal contracting, and cross-unit coordination. Empowering employees to drive innovative solutions has taken the company from innovation-phobic to entrepreneurial at scale. Since 2015, revenue from Haier Smart Home, the company’s listed home-appliance business, has grown by more than 18 percent a year, topping 209 billion renminbi ($32 billion) in 2020. The company has also made a string of acquisitions, including the 2016 purchase of GE Appliances, with new ventures creating more than $2 billion in market value.

Empowering others doesn’t mean leaving them alone. Successful empowerment, counterintuitively, doesn’t mean leaving employees alone. Empowerment requires leaders to give employees both the tools and the right level of guidance and involvement. Leaders should play what we call the coach role: coaches don’t tell people what to do but instead provide guidance and guardrails and ensure accountability, while stepping back and allowing others to come up with solutions.

Haier was able to use a variety of tools—including objectives and key results (OKRs) and common problem statements—to foster an agile way of working across the enterprise that focuses innovative organizational energy on the most important topics. Not all companies can do this, and some will never be ready for enterprise agility. But every organization can take steps to improve the speed and quality of decisions made by empowered individuals.

Managers who are great coaches, for example, have typically benefited from years of investment by mentors, sponsors, and organizations. We think all organizations should do more to improve the coaching skills of managers and help them to create the space and time to coach teams, as opposed to filling out reports, presenting in meetings, and other activities that take time away from driving impact through the work of their teams.

But while great coaches take time to develop, something as simple as a daily stand-up or check-in can drive horizontal connectivity, creating the space for teams to understand what others are doing and where they need help to drive work forward without having to specifically task anyone in a hierarchical way. You may also consider how you are driving a focus on outcomes over activities on a near-term and long-term basis. Whether it’s OKRs or something else, how is your organization proactively communicating a focus on impact and results over tasks and activities? What do you measure? How is it tracked? How is the performance of your people and your teams managed against it? Over what time horizons?

The importance of psychological safety. As you start this journey, be sure to take a close look at psychological safety. If employees don’t feel psychologically safe, it will be nearly impossible for leaders and managers to break through disempowering behaviors like constant escalation, hiding problems or risks, and being afraid to ask questions—no matter how skilled they are as coaches.

Employers should be on the lookout for common problems indicating that significant challenges to psychological safety lurk underneath the surface. Consider asking yourself and your teams questions to test the degree of psychological safety you have cultivated: Do employees have space to bring up concerns or dissent? Do they feel that if they make a mistake it will be held against them? Do they feel they can take risks or ask for help? Do they feel others may undermine them? Do employees feel valued for their unique skills and talents? If the answer to any of these is not a clear-cut “yes,” the organization likely has room for improvement on psychological safety and relatedness as a foundation to high-quality interactions within and between teams.

Information sharing: Fit-for-purpose interactions

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You spend a significant amount of time in meetings every day but feel like nothing has been accomplished. You jump from one meeting to another and don’t get to think on your own until 7 p.m. You wonder why you need to attend a series of meetings where the same materials are presented over and over again. You’re exhausted.

An increasing number of organizations have begun to realize the urgency of driving ruthless meeting efficiency and of questioning whether meetings are truly required at all to share information. Live interactions can be useful for information sharing, particularly when there is an interpretive lens required to understand the information, when that information is particularly sensitive, or when leaders want to ensure there’s ample time to process it and ask questions. That said, most of us would say that most meetings are not particularly useful and often don’t accomplish their intended objective.

We have observed that many companies are moving to shorter meetings (15 to 30 minutes) rather than the standard default of one-hour meetings in an effort to drive focus and productivity. For example, Netflix launched a redesign effort to drastically improve meeting efficiency, resulting in a tightly controlled meeting protocol. Meetings cannot go beyond 30 minutes. Meetings for one-way information sharing must be canceled in favor of other mechanisms such as a memo, podcast, or vlog. Two-way information sharing during meetings is limited by having attendees review materials in advance, replacing presentations with Q&As. Early data show Netflix has been able to reduce the number of meetings by more than 65 percent, and more than 85 percent of employees favor the approach.

Making meeting time a scarce resource is another strategy organizations are using to improve the quality of information sharing and other types of interactions occurring in a meeting setting. Some companies have implemented no-meeting days. In Japan, Microsoft’s “Work Life Choice Challenge” adopted a four-day workweek, reduced the time employees spend in meetings—and boosted productivity by 40 percent. 1 Bill Chappell, “4-day workweek boosted workers’ productivity by 40%, Microsoft Japan says,” NPR, November 4, 2019, npr.org. Similarly, Shopify uses “No Meeting Wednesdays” to enable employees to devote time to projects they are passionate about and to promote creative thinking. 2 Amy Elisa Jackson, “Feedback & meeting-free Wednesdays: How Shopify beats the competition,” Glassdoor, December 5, 2018, glassdoor.com. And Moveline’s product team dedicates every Tuesday to “Maker Day,” an opportunity to create and solve complex problems without the distraction of meetings. 3 Rebecca Greenfield, “Why your office needs a maker day,” Fast Company , April 17, 2014, fastcompany.com.

Finally, no meeting could be considered well scoped without considering who should participate, as there are real financial and transaction costs to meeting participation. Leaders should treat time spent in meetings as seriously as companies treat financial capital. Every leader in every organization should ask the following questions before attending any meeting: What’s this meeting for? What’s my role? Can I shorten this meeting by limiting live information sharing and focusing on discussion and decision making? We encourage you to excuse yourself from meetings if you don’t have a role in influencing the outcome and to instead get a quick update over email. If you are not essential, the meeting will still be successful (possibly more so!) without your presence. Try it and see what happens.

High-quality, focused interactions can improve productivity, speed, and innovation within any organization—and drive better business performance. We hope the above insights have inspired you to try some new techniques to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of collaboration within your organization.

Aaron De Smet is a senior partner in McKinsey’s New Jersey office; Caitlin Hewes is a consultant in the Atlanta office; Mengwei Luo is an associate partner in the New York office; J.R. Maxwell is a partner in the Washington, DC, office; and Patrick Simon is a partner in the Munich office.

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GCSE Artist research templates

Subject: Art and design

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

9 June 2024

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Use the powerpoints and worksheets provided to help guide GCSE students with their initial artist research - how to do it, how to design and layout the page and how to develop their ideas through artist research.

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