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Because decision making meetings are the most important, there are six essential questions you need to ask yourself to organise a successful meeting:

1. What’s the decision?  Does it need a meeting? Can it wait or should it be taken sooner?  Decision needs to be clear & unambiguous preferably with a specific – yes / no

1. Who is the decider? Who has the authority to make the decision? Can they block execution?  One decision maker is best but never more than a few.  Remember it doesn’t always mean the most senior person.
2. Who are reviewers? Reviewers have valuable input but can’t block execution.  Often reviewers can give input in advance of meeting. You need to take their views into account but do not let them stall the decision.  Move forward with decision and if they don’t like it then they can escalate it or put their views aside.
3. What’s the agenda? Adopt the mantra – ‘no agenda, no meeting’.  Agenda should state the decision(s) needed, identify the decider, include links to materials, provide a way to comment ahead of time.  Remember, if you can get people to contribute in advance you may not need the meeting.
4. How long? Shorter is better and don’t default to 1 hour.  Try 20 or 40 minutes rather than 30 or 60.
5. When? How should the meeting fit in with peoples work patterns? See if you can defrag other meetings – one after the other, don’t leave gaps of time. You may want to consider no meeting days and definitely beware of recurring meetings, so keep questioning if they are still needed. Balance having the meeting asap with time for needed for preparation.

The default position on hosting meetings should be that the person calling the meeting must prove they need it, if they can’t the meeting should not happen. Meetings can be the life blood of a fast paced business but equally they can suck the life out of your team if they are not run well.

And finally remember the 5 golden rules:

• start promptly
• end early,
• stick to the agenda,
• always be capturing, and
• make sure everyone is heard.

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