Meetings are necessary parts of an organisation’s operations. They allow participants to collaborate on projects, solve problems, touch base on work progress, and engage in productive discussions or dialogue. Conducting meetings is also a great way to stimulate innovative ideas and encourage good rapport amongst team members.
However, like all powerful tools, meetings can be a double-edged sword. Ill-planned, lengthy, and ambiguous meetings can do more harm than good to a company’s workflow and overall productivity. Sadly, many professionals can attest that they’ve experienced several time-consuming meetings that were held without any discernible purpose. This is, of course, an undesirable outcome if you’re in a leadership position and want to help everyone on your team make the most of their time and energy.
As the saying goes, time is money. The most successful meetings are those that have a clear purpose and address all of the objectives without taking up too much time. This is why conducting a meeting requires a lot of careful planning in advance. For this reason, taking a professional time management course may benefit you, and others on your team, by improving the skills needed for better planning and scheduling.
While setting up effective meetings may seem a little overwhelming at first, it’s quite achievable once you’ve acquired the right skills and familiarised yourself with the necessary steps. If you’d like to learn more about what it takes to conduct a brief yet fruitful team meeting, below is a simple guide to help you get started:
Determine Whether There’s an Actual Need for a Meeting
Firstly, you should determine the purpose of your meeting. Is it for status updates, decision making, brainstorming, information sharing, problem-solving, or team building? The purpose of your meeting will help you determine a clear set of objectives later in your planning process.
Defining your meeting’s purpose also helps you discern whether it should be held in the first place. Certain purposes, like status updates, could be fulfilled through quicker technological alternatives. For instance, instead of holding a meeting, you could disseminate information through emails or digital applications. Ultimately, the decision will depend on the specific needs of your organisation and the complexity of your meeting objectives.
Establish a Clear Set of Objectives
If you’ve decided to hold a meeting, your next course of action would be deciding what topics it will cover. As mentioned in the previous section, your meeting’s purpose will help you determine the objectives it needs to reach. For instance, if you’re planning to conduct a status update meeting, your key topics will likely be related to your team’s progress on certain projects.
Coming up with a clear set of objectives will ensure that your meeting is free of unproductive and time-consuming deviations, helping your team stay on track. Should team members go off tangent during discussions, you can firmly but gently redirect them by asking questions that are more in line with the meeting’s objectives.
Inform Participants about What They Need to Prepare
Do inform your team members about your meeting’s goals at the soonest possible time. This allows them to better prepare points for discussion that they want to bring up. You may also want to assign tasks to members for further preparation. By doing this, you’re not only saving time and boosting your team’s productivity, but also ensuring that all members are engaged during the meeting.
For instance, if your meeting aims to discuss possible solutions to a particular problem, you might want to ask members of the team to start brainstorming ahead of time. This way, they’ll come equipped with possible solutions at the start of the meeting, allowing your team to proceed straight to pitching and deliberating ideas.
Schedule Your Meeting at a Convenient Time
When scheduling your meeting, do make sure to check the available work hours of all your team members so you can see which time slot works best for everyone. The last thing you want is to schedule a meeting when team members are working with tight deadlines, as this could greatly hamper their progress. With that in mind, do avoid calling for emergency meetings as much as possible, as this may further disrupt the workflow of your team. Additionally, remind your team members to regularly update their calendars so meetings are always scheduled at appropriate times.
Set a Time Limit and Adhere to It
Try to keep your meeting’s duration brief—ideally thirty minutes to an hour. Of course, some meetings may require ninety minutes or more, depending on the objectives that need to be accomplished. During these cases, make sure to schedule short breaks for participants at least every ninety minutes. Even with clear objectives, overly lengthy meetings can exhaust team members and make it difficult for them to stay attentive or engaged in discussions.
Remember, the duration of a meeting isn’t an indicator of effectiveness. A meeting is effective if it allows your team to do more in less time. Whether you are conducting meetings remotely or in person, following the tips mentioned above will ensure that you and your team are spending your valuable work hours wisely.
Our team at Priority Management offers different courses to help you and your team be more effective in meetings, take a look at the courses we offer today.