Time is precious so how can you make your meetings successful?

The HR Blog

The summer is nearing the end and we are focussing on the last four months of the year. So here are some ways to save you the time
1. Update meetings: Kill them and find a better way to update people that doesn’t eat so much time! Replace with daily stand ups (see below) or email snippets.
2. Strategy, brainstorming, planning: – Consider what you want from the meeting – are they hiding a decision? Keep attendees to a minimum and make sure they are well scoped.
3. 1-1 meetings: These should be sacred, never cancelled! Consider walking meetings. As the manager you should have one agenda item for your report – ‘How can I make your life easier?’
4. Daily stand ups: Fast paced and always standing up. Everyone says what they accomplished yesterday, will accomplish today and are there any road blocks? Everything else gets taken offline.
5. All hands: If you need them they should be regular & periodic sessions to share, celebrate and have Q&A
6. Decision making: These should be the bulk of all meetings. They are essential but require the most effort to organise and are the source of most pitfalls.

Customer Service

Because decision making meetings are the most important, there are six essential questions you need to ask yourself in order 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
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. How long? Shorter is better and don’t default to 1 hour. Try 20 or 40 minutes rather than 30 or 60.
6. 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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