Meetings are supposed to be a place where teams can discuss ideas, overcome obstacles, make decisions. They are meant to be an engine of productivity, but most of the times they turn out to be a productivity killer instead. In fact, 67% of executives consider meetings to be failures.
So the question is: how can we make our meetings more effective?
First of all, before even thinking about booking the meeting room and gathering your team, you need to be asking yourself these three questions:
Do you really need to call a meeting?
That’s the first question you need to think of. Decide if a meeting is really necessary. If you just need to share information with your team and if sending a simple email or gathering a few people for 15 minutes in your office would do the trick, then it’s probably a good idea to skip the formal meeting.
Now, if you want to brainstorm, make a decision, solve a problem you can give it a go. Meetings should always centre on discussion.
Who really needs to be there?
Don’t invite people to a meeting if there’s really no point for them to be present. If you want to solve a problem, invite the people who will bring diverse perspectives and knowledge. If you’re discussing budget, invite someone from accounting who is suited to answer budget related questions. When people feel that the meeting topic is irrelevant for them they’ll keep thinking “why am I even here?” and see it as a complete waste of their time.
What’s the agenda?
What is the purpose of the meeting? What should be accomplished? You have to decide what will be discussed right from the start. Everyone attending the meeting should know why they’re there and what needs to be accomplished. A clear agenda will help everyone to stay focused and on topic and get back on track if the discussion goes off course.
How to create a meeting agenda in Outplanr:
You can build your meeting plan by creating a Project and name it “Weekly Team Meeting”, for example.
- Add topics you want to discuss as Tasks.
- Organise the tasks/topics in Sections. You can have one for “Follow up”, “Discussion Topics”, “Outcomes”, etc.
- You might be running the meeting but if there are some talking points that need to be covered by someone else on your team you can assign them those. All you have to do is assigning the task/topic.
- If a similar meeting is happening next week, instead of recreating the same project you can quickly duplicate it and make the necessary adjustments.
If you thought about those questions and decided to go ahead with the meeting then you should take a look at the following tips for running a more effective meeting:
Share the agenda and any files before the meeting
If you share the agenda with attendees before the meeting they will walk win knowing what will be covered and hopefully they’ve prepared some ideas they want to share. It will make it easier to get straight down to business.
If you need your teammates to read something before the meeting, you can create the task “Read Super Important Document for Project Meeting”, use the task description to give them a few context and attach the file in question. Then duplicate the task and assign the copies to all attendees. Don’t forget to set the due date before the meeting.
Get your meetings started on time…
Do you know that saying: a queen is never late, everyone else is simply early? Well, unless you’re royalty (which is not very likely), I’m sorry to tell you but that doesn’t apply to you. 😅
Let’s imagine this scenario: The meeting was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. It’s 10:15 and everyone’s scrolling through Instagram, chatting about last night’s game or checking their inboxes because the person in charge is yet to arrive. They start felling annoyed and their energy starts to drain from their bodies. The result? Fewer ideas and decrease morale. People appreciate when you understand their time is valuable, so don’t keep them waiting.
… and ended on time
That’s just as important as starting on time. If you planned the meeting to last for two hours, stick to your plan. Probably people will already have other meetings scheduled, tasks to get done and deadlines to meet. If they see the meeting is lasting longer than it should they’ll start worrying about where they have to be next and disengage from what’s being discussed.
In that Project you created to be your meeting agenda, you can plan a duration for each topic you want to cover. Once in the meeting room, you can put up that plan on a screen for everyone to see. This will not only help you to make sure you tackle everything that was on the agenda, but keep people focused as well.
No technology allowed
Have you ever secretly checked your social media during a work meeting? It’s much likely you did. In fact, a study says 71% of meeting attendees check Facebook, Twitter and Instagram during office meetings. The solution for this might be banning smartphones, tablets or laptops from entering the room completely. Or else, people will end up emailing or surfing the web instead of focusing and contributing to what’s being discussed.
Who’s doing what at the meeting?
Before the meeting starts, assign people their roles. You can have a facilitator or someone in charge of taking notes, for example. If you’re planning to have certain people talking about specific topics make sure you give them a heads up beforehand so that they go to the meeting prepared.
Set clear next steps as you go
During the meeting, teammates can create tasks in Outplanr for action items as they come up and assign them straight away. This way if someone volunteers to do something there’s not the risk of them going back to their desk with no memory of what they agreed to. It’s important that you don’t forget to set due dates as well. That way, everyone will be on the same page and walk out knowing what’s next.
Follow-up
It’s possible that people leave meetings with different interpretations about what was discussed. So, when the meeting ends, the note taker can create a task, attach the document summing up the meeting and add those who attended, the no-shows, and anyone else who may need to be informed as task followers so they can check what was discuss and which decisions were made.
Meetings don’t have to be complete time-wasters. They can actually bring value and be productive, helping teams move work forward in a meaningful way. You just have to take the steps needed to make them that way.
Got any other useful tips for running better meetings? Share them with us 👇
