Productive Meetings
It’s inevitable now right? We are all going to spending more time working from home shortly - at least those of us that can. For those who can’t - that sucks.
For most people, working from home is going to mean meetings are going to be held remote. We still need to collaborate and email is not the answer (to most problems <future blog post!>).
I’ve been on a fair share of both audio and video conferences over the past years so here’s my top 7 tips to conducting a productive remote meeting. You can also use these tips for IRL meetings when normality is resumed.
Make your goals clear. Every meeting needs to have a goal: learn something, share something, agree on something, make a decision. State your goal at the beginning of the meeting (in fact, make sure it’s clear in the meeting invite - as well as any pre-reading), re-focus on the goal midway and make sure you close the meeting having achieved it.
45 mins is plenty. In fact 20 mins should be enough in most cases. If you default all your meetings to an hour, they will last an hour. No-one will have time to stretch, go the bathroom or grab a coffee. Focus on the goal, avoid waffle and be efficient. If you set your meetings to 45 mins then you are giving the attendees time to prep for their next call, catch up with other work or just take 5 mins to breath and re-focus.
Limit the number of attendees. Committees are a terrible way of making decisions. 6 people is a good number to have in a meeting, any more and there’s no scope for all voices to be heard. *Unless this is a broadcast with no interaction planned other than Q&A. Get the right people on the call, state your goals and…
Have a moderator / facilitator. Designating someone to keep track of time, keep the conversation on track, and keep the goal in mind is invaluable. Pick someone who is calm, non-biased and understands the subject matter (more on this below).
Wrap up with 5 mins left and document next steps. So what, now what? You’ve made a decision, agreed on an outcome, what next? Make sure everyone knows that the time was valuable, progress was made and there’s a next time.
Use a transcription service to take notes. You don’t want 6 people all typing away in the background taking notes. You want them to listen, and contribute. Outsource the note taking to a transcription service (or an intern). Both Zoom and Webex offer transcription services - I’m also a big fan of otter.ai
Start on time, end on time. Meetings that start late end late. You need some flex in your schedule but it’s vital you keep your eye on the clock. Your facilitator is the bad girl / guy here. It’s going to be tough in the beginning - but you’ll get better in no time at all.
So, there’s my top 7 tips; remember, pain is temporary - change is inevitable. Make a small change today and see a big impact tomorrow.
Final note - why not recruit an external moderator / facilitator to help you instigate, implement and embed this change? Where could I find a person with lots of experience, who is calm, organised and non-biased? Right here. Me. :-) Message me for details and a proposal. Invest in change and you’ll see a quick return.
