No one likes meetings and for good reason. In most meetings, most of the time, most people think most of what goes on is a waste of time with no results. Meetings can be productive! I recently introduced my team to the concept of the 30 minute meeting and was able to go so far that my executive assistant will not book my time for a meeting longer than 30 minutes. The only exceptions are for my boss the CFO and the CEO. Even complex issues, if properly mature and adhering to the below can be addressed in 30 minutes.
While most methodologies emphasize, and consequently most organizations only follow, the first 3 items below you really need all 7 below for meeting success:
Schedule a 30 minute meeting – Who decided meetings should be 30 or 60 minutes? Certainly not all meetings can be run in 30 minutes, but many can, so we’d all be better off if the default time were small, not large. At the very least set a start and end time but ideally set a duration for each agenda item. This will also tell you if the meeting is reasonable or not (ie: you cannot discuss 10 items in 30mins if each item requires 5 mins)
Have a goal based agenda – Since having an agenda at all would be a plus in most meetings how about telling & focusing people on what the meeting is supposed to achieve. Ideally identify the person responsible to drive the item. No one should arrive at a meeting not knowing why they are there–and what is supposed to be accomplished. BTW, this is also my biggest pet peeve when outlook calendar invites are sent with no agenda in the meeting body!
Send notes ASAP – Within 12 hours (at most) post meeting the organizer must send out notes summarizing & recording who attended, what was discussed, any agreements that were reached, and any action items that were assigned.
Send required readings 2 days beforehand – The burden is on the organizer to make this small enough that people actually do it. Never ever allow a meeting to be “let’s all read the documents together and penalize anyone diligent enough to do their homework”. BTW, using properly concise decision and discussion point documents 24 hours is typically plenty otherwise you should go back to the drawing board since you are probably not ready for a meeting.
Start on time – How often does this happen? Almost never. Part of the problem is that Outlook (and all schedule programs) doesn’t have travel buffer space between meetings. However, don’t wait for stragglers to show up & don’t go back and review what has already been covered since you are just wasting the time of the people who showed up on time for the meeting. BTW, if the meeting organizer/sponsor doesn’t show up on time, consider the meeting cancelled and go back to work. How long to wait for the organizer to show up varies among companies, but I wouldn’t wait any longer than 5 minutes.
No phones, no exceptions – My observation is that if you’re promised 30 minutes, and it’s all good stuff, you don’t need a secondary thing to be doing while you pretend to be listening. SIDEBAR: It will be interesting to see how the increasing penetration of smart phones will enhance meeting accomplishments or hinder.
Focus! Note off topic comments - If you have an agenda, someone has to police it and this burden is on whoever called the meeting. There is a fine line between what are amplifying remarks about the topic under discussion and what is a tangential topic. The meeting organizer must decide to table tangents and arguments that go too far from the agenda. It never hurts to say “let’s take that up off-line”.
The other 2 items that I haven’t been able to move to, and really do play off of each other, are below:
Stand up – Reminds everyone the goal isn’t to elaborate or be supplemental. Make your point, make your requests, or keep quiet. If there is a disagreement, say so, but handle resolving it outside of the meeting (see #7 above). It is also tough to doze off when you have to stand up (it is also tough to hold a laptop see below #9).
No laptops, except presenters and note takers – This is a variation of #6 above and I personally haven’t been able to get by this (lead by example). The typing of keys & looking at email can be distracting to all participants but it is also incredibly agile to update a project schedule, spreadsheet, etc in real-time during the meeting.
Based on my experience so far, while not always easy, the meetings that follow this format are much more productive. What do you think?
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