Making meetings productive

How many meetings have you attended recently? And how many actually
achieved their purpose?

Do they get done what they're supposed to, never really get anywhere? Do
people not pay attention, stare into coffee cups or doodle? I watched someone
emailing via laptop the entire time at one recent meeting. But perhaps one
reason was the fault of the meeting itself: 'ho hum' and directionless, even
a waste of time.

Here are 10 tips for making your meetings productive and useful.

1. Make sure you really need a meeting.

Never use meetings to make routine announcements or as a substitute for
action. You won't achieve anything.

Move the announcements and routine

information, 'just so everyone knows' stuff, status
reports, etc. elsewhere - for example, post on an
intranet, noticeboard or distribute via email.

Keep meetings for things that really do need discussion and decisions that
need the people involved to be there.
And by the way, if you think the ISO Standard says you must have a
'management review meeting', you are wrong.

2. Have an agenda for every meeting. In writing.

The agenda is just the planned content for the meeting: the topic or topics
for discussion. An agenda gives people time to prepare, and helps keep
the meeting on track. You don't even need to provide it as a formal
Agenda - it could be as simple as just a bullet list of topics. But don't have
a meeting without one.

3. Allocate time for each agenda item.

If you don't, how will you know if you're running late? Or keep the meeting
on time?

4. Assign a 'Chairperson' /Facilitator and a Note-taker

At every meeting, make sure there is an agreed chairperson (person
facilitating the meeting) and some one to record actions and decisions.
Never have the same person trying to do both. No one can fill both roles
 well: one of them will suffer.

Don't fall into the trap of leaving the chair role vacant, or thinking it isn't
needed. There must be someone who takes responsibility for the meeting
overall. If not, the usual outcomes are either a 'talkfest' without any agreed
actions, or a meeting dominated by the person with the highest status (eg,
a manager) doing most of the talking without any discussion. (In that case,
see Rule 1.)

5. Start with clarifying the meeting purpose and expected outcome.

At the beginning of the meeting, review the agenda (& if necessary revise
it), so everyone is clear, and there is a shared understanding on what the
meeting should achieve.

6. Keep the meeting moving forward, and on track

This is the Chair's job. Effective meetings have effective facilitators and it's
well worth developing this skill.
Staying on track can include 'parking' an issue, deferring it, rescheduling or
even referring it to someone else, so that this meeting isn't derailed and
achieves its purpose.

7. Write down key decisions & actions: who will do what, and by when?
Before going to the next item, the Chair should confirm what has been
decided for the current item, and make sure the Note-Taker has that. If
there is no clear decision or action now, people certainly won't be clear
later what was decided. Or recollections will vary; the usual result is
nothing happens.

8. Don't assume silence means agreement.

Some people are slower or less inclined to speak up. If necessary, the
Chair should encourage explicit participation, for example, seek specific
input from people who have been silent: 'Do we have agreement on this
point? Fred, are you OK with it? Sue?' etc. Much better to have
disagreement in the meeting and discuss a thorny topic, than have
resistance emerge later.

9. Keep on time.
That means starting on time and finishing on time. It's professional as well
as courteous.

10. Circulate Actions/minutes as soon as possible after the

meeting, within 3 days at most.
This makes sure everyone is clear about what was agreed, and what is to
happen. Start the next meeting by reviewing and accepting those, or
correcting if needed..