Tired of Meetings?
5 Essential Steps to Make Your Meetings
the Most Productive They Can Be
Picture this scenario…
You are sitting in a 9:00 a.m. meeting and currently it’s 9:10 a.m. and not all of the expected attendees have arrived. The moderator of has gotten started with item #1 of an over-loaded agenda. The moderator’s agenda is really just a list of bulleted topics that are to be discussed.
Several attendees just handed you their handouts to be discussed in this meeting. You haven’t seen this information before, so you expect to be able to read some of it, but prefer to focus on the speaker at the moment, so as not to be rude.
At 9:15, two people open the door of the meeting and are waved in by the moderator. The current discussion gets interrupted and folks start to chat with the newcomers as they sit down. Then a few minutes are spent getting these folks up to speed on the discussion.
As each topic is discussed, you realize that not all the topics will be fitting into the time frame of this meeting. One of those topics is of great interest to you and your department, but has been pushed forward from prior meeting agendas 4 times now and you’re betting they won’t get to it… again.
Now you’re listening to one of the topics that came with a handout. The speaker explains the entire background of the topic and finally, 6 or 7 minutes later, gets to the point about the decision this person is looking for. The attendees are asked to read the hand-out and are given a few minutes to do so.
Once everyone has read the handout, several people state that they need to go to other individuals within their departments to ask questions or discuss further the topic at hand. So the speaker agrees to table this discussion and decision until the next meeting, one month later.
Then the next speaker gets ready to explain their topic and everyone realizes that it is now 10:05 and folks need to move on to their next meeting. The meeting should have been adjourned at 10:00 a.m., since it was only supposed to be an hour.
Does this meeting scenario sound at all familiar?
Recently I spoke with a client about the meetings conducted in her company and we discussed some of the best ways to create and drive effective, productive meetings so that scenarios like the one above don’t happen anymore.
Here are the top 5 things you can do to get better results and outcomes from your meetings and use your meeting time most productively.
1.) Create an agenda that includes the following components:
- Name of meeting at the top
- Date and time
- Expected attendees
- Agenda topics denoted with numerals, Roman or otherwise.
- A brief description of each agenda topic
- The person to speak for each agenda topic
- The time allotted for that person to be speaking on that topic
2.) Use a moderator/leader, a minute-taker and a time keeper for each meeting. These are three separate people. The moderator can focus on the content of the topics and the speakers, helping to clarify or steer discussion. The minute taker needs to take minutes and the time keeper can keep the speakers from running over their allotted time.
3.) No one should be permitted to enter a meeting late. The culture can be changed with the appropriate backing from leadership. Expectations can be changed if you explain the rules and stick with the rules. The door gets locked after the meeting starts. This isn’t a garden party. It’s a meeting. Meetings should start on time and end on time.
If you need people to make decisions in these meetings, then they actually have to BE there in order for topics to be discussed and decisions to be made. It’s not a good use of time to backtrack on topics because people are late and need to be caught up to speed. True emergencies can be handled separately. Tardiness and lack of respect for the rest of the attendees is unacceptable if these meetings are to be taken seriously.
4.) Agendas and handouts need to be sent out one week prior to the meeting if you want decisions to be made AT the meeting. This is so that folks know what topics are to be discussed, what materials are to be read ahead of time and what decision or recommendation is expected from them at the meeting.
If you are surprising everyone at the meeting with the topics and materials, it isn’t always likely that a decision can be reached or recommendations made on the spot. Attendees should be clear on the expectation that materials are to be read before the meetings and that they are to bring their recommendations or decisions to the meeting. A decision will be reached much faster this way.
This also helps with the issue of last minute emergencies that may pull someone away from the meeting too. If they have read the material and have come up with their recommendations, but were called away on an unexpected emergency, then they can forward their decisions or recommendations to the meeting moderator for inclusion in the meeting and the minutes.
Whether you send out an email with attachments or a physical handout, include the brief background to the topic and the reason for the necessary decision or recommendations and puh-lease be brief, accurate and to the point!
5.) Don’t overload the agenda with topics that will not fit into the meeting time frame. Don’t give hope to a person or a department when it’s likely that time will run out. Use the time frames for each topic suggested in Tip #1 above so that you can fairly and somewhat accurately show time frames for each topic within reason. Prioritize the topics and be selective. Decide if the topic suggested for discussion is best suited for this meeting or by another method. Then if you’re still out of room on the agenda repeatedly, consider increasing the time allotted for each meeting or increase the frequency of the meetings.
