There are some very simple tips to ensure more effective meetings. Whether it’s for your team meetings, project management, or problem-solving meetings, there is an important foundation to know for optimal organization.
1. Invite the Right People
The first tip is, I think, one of the most important: invite the right people.
The preselection of participants should be aligned with both the subject of the meeting and the objectives. For instance, you could choose according to your meeting being brainstorming, an assessment, monitoring, deliverable management, etc.
Workers participating in each type of meeting may not be the same so we must take special care to make sure we have the right people in relation to the meeting’s purpose. It’s essential for holding effective meetings.
Someone who should not be present is only wasting their time and potentially damaging the meeting.
2. Create a Meeting Agenda
Now that we’ve invited the right people, we must put forward an agenda.
This document is very important to ensure that all items to be discussed are followed. The agenda is the skeleton of the meeting!
What an agenda should contain:
- The topics for the meeting
- Preparedness of those who present each subject being brought forward
- The expected objective for each point such as informing, exchanging, generating ideas, reviewing, or decide
- Important documents related to the topics if applicable
Then, the agenda should be available to everyone before the meeting for better preparation of the participants.
3. Determine the Time Allotted
Another simple trick to holding more effective meetings is to set a time limit per topic.
The majority of meetings are one hour long and are followed by very close to two hours. Is this too much? In our experience, meetings can last less than the amount of time you planned to spend in them.
How can this be achieved?
With better planning by writing a detailed agenda indicating what topics are covered, by whom and how much time is allocated to each item.
4. Assign a Timekeeper
To finish the meeting within the deadline, you must select a timekeeper who will inform participants if they exceed the time allocated for their section.
The goal is not necessarily to do discipline, which no one likes to do but to inform participants as time progresses. If all participants agree that more time should be given to any given point, then the meeting continues but it does so with full knowledge of the changed timeline.
5. Send the Minutes of the Meeting
Once the meeting is over, participants usually expect to receive the minutes of the meeting that will outline the main points discussed.
It should include any additional notes or topics discussed during the meeting. It is especially important to include the decisions that were made as well as the tasks that were assigned as well.
The minutes are an essential document that becomes a resource for your team both as a reference and for task execution.
For More Effective Meetings
These are five basic tips that will help you better manage your meetings and thus enhance the value of the participants and increase the success rate of the projects involved.
With Beenote, you can cover these five tips with ease and consistency! Digitizing your meetings is much easier than using multiple tools at once.
You can quickly write your own agenda with a timer per topic as well as minutes accessible to your team. Your agenda can be modified in real-time to add decisions, notes, and tasks.
With a structured approach to planning, executing, and tracking meetings, Beenote will enhance the importance of your role as a meeting leader while making work easier.
Change the world, one meeting at a time! ®
Serial Technology entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in managing and marketing of new technology. Beenote, 1st paperless meeting management portal for boards, committees and their teams.
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