Boost your team productivity: Start from having effective meetings
If you ask around what is the worst office time annoyance, “endless meetings” will probably top the long list of answers. We’ve all been there — stepping into a meeting room with some problems to solve but then ending up with more problems and a waste of time. Now let the figures talk:
According to Get a Klu (2012), of the 11 million meetings that occur in the U.S. every day, half the meeting time is actually wasted, and professionals lose 31 hours per month to unproductive meetings. [1][2]
Inefficient meetings, without question, have become one of the biggest obstacles to a productive working environment. However, working in a team means there is no way for you and me to escape from all kinds of meetings. In this context, how to improve the quality of meetings in order to boost team productivity becomes crucial. And what I’d love to share today, is my learning from the MSBA practicum experience.
Why productive teams need effective meetings?
Let’s start by looking at how inefficient meetings would wreck a team’s productivity.
As a student analytics team working closely with the MSBA industry partners (MIPs), we followed a weekly schedule for the last quarter as follows: Every Thursday the team had a meeting with our MIPs to update our research results, then allocated tasks in the internal team meeting next to it. On the following Wednesday we had a “Practicum Day” which is a whole-day group meeting for completing tasks, exchanging findings, and summarizing points to present. The working Wednesday was intended for fruitful collaboration. However, we encountered a number of difficulties when we are implementing the schedule.
First, we didn’t build a clear roadmap for each gathering. Agendas were missing or incomplete. We didn’t set a time limit for each item discussed, and we didn’t have a concept of “how many topics remain on the table today”. So the meetings would usually drag on. Sometimes a group member would hop off the meeting when it was actually heading to the most important part. This situation would, as a result, cause serious harm to the group efficiency, because communication cost would therefore increase.
Second, in the Practicum Day we often found ourselves lost in endless discussions. For instance, it would cost us several hours to go through the tasks done in the previous week, since everyone had many questions to ask and the person in charge had to make plenty of efforts to keep everyone on the same page. Before we even realized we had already gone too far into the details.
Besides, tasks were not smartly distributed in the meetings. Key information such as action items, deadlines and follow-up persons were not carefully documented. So it would be hard to keep track of members’ progress and make adjustments before the next meeting.
To build a more effective meeting style: Where do we start?
Understanding how bad meetings may ruin a team’s productivity caused us to think about ways to improve them. We did some research on how to hold effective meetings and started by creating meeting guidelines. After trailing for several weeks, I saw the changes taken place in the group, and here are some tips to share:
Create a smart agenda
Creating a clear agenda is never easier than it seems. A five-star agenda should include items of conversations, the time each item would take up, and most importantly, a well-considered flow of topics. For instance, the most important item should never be placed at the end of a meeting. Research shows a person can only focus an average of 10 to 18 minutes at a time, so if you stuff up a meeting with trivial questions without prioritizing crucial topics, people will just get distracted. Thus, to keep the productivity of a meeting, never forget to think through your agenda and stick to it.
Control the time
Time control consists of two parts. The step one of our team is to reschedule our meeting day in the week. When the meeting was on Wednesday, we often found ourselves overwhelmed by too many things to go through. On one hand, to recall the action items from the past Thursday (which is 6 days ago) is really time-consuming. On the other, it blocked us from discovering and solving problems early. By switching the Practicum Day from Wednesday to Monday, we can now focus more on understanding the logic behind sub-projects, reaching group consensus, and allocating tasks accordingly. It also gives more time for individuals to work on their own tasks afterward. If we find something difficult, a zoom call or even an online group chat can settle us down. In this way, our group productivity increases.
Step two, for each meeting, stick to the time limits on the agenda[3]. The benefits of always following the timeline are to keep everyone on track and to prevent the team from going too far from the main topics. Since time is limited, it encourages each attendee to be more prepared, and precise in conversations.
Involve process management
Process management is undoubtedly essential for a team’s productivity. The question is how do we apply it to team meetings? After reading some articles, I resonated with my past working experience and summarized the following points that may be useful for team managers.
- Ask for task updates before meetings[5]. A standard update format is necessary to keep everything concise. It also serves as a reminder for individuals to keep up with the team.
- Summarize key items related to the current state at the beginning of a meeting. By doing so your team will have a better picture in mind and easily be on the same page.
- Wrap up the meeting carefully. Whenever you end a meeting, make sure everyone in the team is clear about his/her accountability. Key action items, deadlines, and milestones should be well documented and constant checks should be made to ensure group progress.
Don’t forget to evaluate your meeting!
With all the methods above, there is one thing that you probably don’t want to miss: evaluation of meetings. One feasible way is to talk to the attendees after meetings and write down their suggestions. To find your team’s perfect meeting style is not easy, because for different teams and meetings with different purposes, there is never a universal solution. For common challenges that you may face in team meetings, this blog can serve as some useful inspiration.
References:
[1] https://getaklu.wordpress.com/
[2] https://www.getminute.com/productive-meetings/
[3] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230559
[4] https://hbr.org/2017/07/stop-the-meeting-madness
[5] https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/secrets-running-project-status-meetings-7009
