Zoomed out?

How to Create Effective Meetings

By Marci Ries

People meeting around a table with a plethora of devices including computer and pens with paper.

As a project manager by profession, my days have always been filled with meetings with the majority being virtual. In fact, I have never met my boss or many of my coworkers or employees in person but have still found great working relationships through the virtual platform. Many of you however, have been thrown into a new work from home/100% virtual environment. In a recent work from home survey we took from our engineering team, I saw comments like “I’m Zoomed out, my calendar is a checkerboard of meetings, and how am I supposed to get my day job done when I’m in meetings all day?”

Perry Tancredi and I put together the following guidelines for our engineering team to make their meetings as effective as possible for both the facilitator and attendees.

As a facilitator:

Understand the purpose for your meeting:

• Is it informational, problem-solving, decision-making, planning and strategy?
• State the objective of the meeting in your meeting request and at the beginning of the meeting.
• Keep meetings where decisions need to be made to 5 or fewer people.

Do you actually need a meeting? Consider alternatives:

• Slack conversation
• Email
• One-on-One conversation
• Pre-recorded or written training

Based on the meeting type:

• Identify appropriate length and time of meeting
• Be aware of time zones
• Meetings don’t need to be in 30 minute increments — 20 or 45 minute meetings work great and people appreciate the space between meetings
• Invite the right audience
• Make sure attendees know if they are required or optional
• Make it clear in the agenda if you expect specific people to speak or make decisions

Prepare ahead of time:

• Create an agenda
• Plan who will present
• Identify prerequisites
• Know how to use the technology — practice if it’s new to you
• Include your agenda with names and times in your meeting invite

Be prepared to steer the meeting:

• Watch the time
• Ask questions
• Parking lot items as needed
• Keep the meeting productive

Close the meeting by:

• Clarifying decisions made
• Listing action items
• Clearly identifying next steps and owners

As an attendee:

• Own your own calendar. Accept only the meetings you need to attend. Delegate meetings to others if appropriate
• Don’t be afraid to ask for a purpose/agenda if you’re invited to a meeting without one
• Come prepared and be present in the meetings you attend
• Provide feedback to meeting facilitators/leaders

We highly recommend you give these tips a try. Yes, it takes some thought and planning but it pays off in the end. We’ve also included some other articles we found helpful. Check them out!

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Running an Effective Staff Meeting

My final words of encouragement are that we are all in this together. Shadow others, ask for and provide feedback, and just take a few minutes to check in on how people are doing. Someone may just need that virtual water cooler talk more than you know. Stay safe friends and I’ll see you on Zoom!