Staying Productive: How to keep your meetings on track
Inefficiently run meetings can be huge time wasters - you probably know this from experience. Fortunately, it's easier than you may think to make meetings more productive. Here are some tips to get the most of out of your meetings:
Have an agenda.
Avoid setting up meetings with the intention of just getting people together to talk. Before inviting people to any meeting, create a list of goals or outcomes that you expect from the discussion. Then create a printed agenda with times allotted to each item and stick to it.
If an email or memo will suffice, then don’t have the meeting.
Some people like meetings for the sake of having meetings. Avoid this temptation because the meeting and the preparation work takes valuable time away from more productive tasks for you and the invitees.
Invite only essential attendees.
You want to avoid having the majority of attendees sitting quietly while awaiting the 5 percent of the discussion that pertains to them. If someone only needs to be part of 25 percent of the discussion or less, speak with them beforehand so they don’t have to attend or go over their part first. If there are several people with just a little to contribute, try a quick conversation and send out an email with what you’ve learned rather than having the meeting.
If someone has nothing to contribute to the topic then don’t invite them. It’s tempting to invite bosses or upper management to keep them in the loop but inviting them can cause them to ask questions for the sake of looking like they’re participating.
Limit it to 30 minutes.
People’s attention wanes after 30 minutes. If you think you’ll need more time to cover everything on your agenda, consider having more than one meeting. There are always exceptions, but remember that agendas tend to stretch to fit the time allotted to them. Having shorter meetings encourages everyone to stay focused and discourages non-topic related discussions.
Take discussions that are of interest to only a few participants offline.
The telltale sign of this situation is when only a few participants are involved in the discussion and everyone else is zoning out. If it’s not of interest to the majority of attendees, take it offline.
Don’t allow tangents to last more than a minute.
Tangents happen. But instead of cutting tangents off immediately, which may offend attendees, add your thoughts and then bring the focus back to the topic.
Start and finish on time.
Explain in your invitation that the meeting will start at the scheduled time so all material can be covered. People will still come late, but will eventually learn that you start and finish on time. Don’t divert from your agenda just to get people caught up, as that will encourage the behavior.
Bring extra copies of printed materials.
It’s not uncommon for uninvited guests to attend — invitees may bring along people that they feel could benefit from attending.
So instead of having to run to the copier or make attendees share, bring extra copies — you can always recycle the unused ones.
Arrive early.
Your setup time will vary. Allow 30 minutes to set up a projector or rearrange the room. Allocate at least five minutes to organize handouts, make notes on a white board or clean up after the prior meeting.
Anticipate questions and discussions as part of your prep.
Good preparation can make things go smoothly. So anticipate questions and discussion points so you can prepare responses and bring along any supporting materials.
James Feudo is the principal trainer at JVF Solutions in Framingham.
He can be reached at james@jvf.com.
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