subject: Five steps to more efficient meetings [print this page] Five steps to more efficient meetings Five steps to more efficient meetings
On the way to work one morning, a man said to his friend, "I'm really looking forward to going to work today."
"Why?" asked his friend.
"Because I don't have a single meeting today, so I can really get some work done."
If you and your team members can relate to this feeling, it's probably a good time to take a hard look at why, how and how often you have meetings.
Here are some tips to make your meetings more productive.
1. Understand the goal of the meeting. There are several good reasons to have a meeting. Possibilities may include sharing important information, coordinating activities among a group or tapping into skill sets to solve a problem. If you can't clearly state a goal for your meeting, you don't need to have it.
For example, "We just like to get everyone together from time to time" is not a clear goal. "We want to share the results of the first quarter and communicate our goals for second quarter" is a clear goal.
2. Decide who really needs to attend. Again, there are several good reasons to invite participants. Such reasons may be the attendees have or need the information that will be shared, will be involved in the activities being planned or have the special skills or expertise needed.
Groups of more than 10 people are difficult to manage, particularly if discussion is needed. If you do have to include more than 10 people, manage your agenda carefully and keep the group on task.
Make sure one or two people in the room don't dominate the discussion. If you've asked someone to be at the meeting, make sure that person has opportunities to share.
3. Prepare a timed agenda. Decide what needs to be covered in relation to the goal you set in Step 1.
Break the topics into reasonable bites and allocate a certain amount of time to discuss each one. Be realistic. Take into consideration the size of the group, the complexity of the topic and the likelihood of a variety of opinions on the topic. The idea is not to keep people from having time to share. The object is to stay focused on the purpose of the meeting and to give more time to the more important elements of the discussion.
