Making Your Meetings More Productive

Meetings, meeting, and more meetings, but little accomplished. It sometimes seems as though groups meet more out of routine than purpose. I appreciate these suggestions from the folks at the 99 percent (and if you've never been to their website, go, it's full of great advice about being productive, getting organized, and making your ideas become more than a foggy memory).

Meetings, like Action Items, should have specific, actionable goals: Rather than “Discuss Project A,” think of more focused goals, such as, “Determine budget and workflow for Project A.”

What is it about gathering a group of employees that sends otherwise well-oiled machines into epic failure mode? I would argue that it’s not the act of the meeting itself that presents a problem, but rather, a lack of two crucial things: a goal, and quality assurance.

They should also have a designated leader who makes sure that the gathering achieves its objective. As a purpose-focused facilitator, the “meeting leader” keeps everyone accountable by doing a few things:

1) Stating the meeting’s purpose at its start.
Why are we here, and what are we supposed to accomplish? Laying out the objective and setting the meeting’s tone is one of the leader’s key responsibilities.

2) Taking notes (if required by the group).
Some groups find that each attendee taking notes becomes redundant and subjective. By appointing one impartial note-taker, the team is free to focus on the conversation at hand, and able to later recount their discussions without bias.

3) Keeping the meeting on track.
Meetings are wont to wander into territory unrelated to the initial goal. When this inevitably happens, the meeting leader redirects conversation back to the matter at hand. If an important but off-topic idea pops up, the meeting leader makes a note so that it can be revisited later in a separate meeting if need be.

4) Articulating next steps.
To finish up, the meeting leader does a quick rundown of the meeting’s highlights, ensures that everyone knows their Action Steps, and takes charge of scheduling the next gathering if need be.

HT: The 99 Percent