Meetings – good or bad, are key business tool to exchange information, review progress, and solve problems. Every minute we spend in a meeting is crucial, because, Time is zero sum. Wasting time in a meeting is a big deal and so looses the productivity.

Meetings considered as the third foremost time waster of work in the world.

5 Time wasters during a Meeting

Inviting large group

Expanding invite lists affects meeting. Verbalize prior to know why a team member should present in a meeting.

Letting people speak too much

Do not encourage people to talk just because they love to. Keep discussions more inclusive and balanced.

Poor Scheduling

Preparing right agenda is pivotal. Schedule a meeting properly with tracking the points intended to cover in prior.

Not defined the meeting type

Before setting up a meeting, ensure to schedule a planned meeting. Book the right space, define the time and invite right people for meeting.

Relying too much on AV

This actually kills plenty of time. AV helps to clarify key points, but relying too much on presentation can create headaches.

Productive meetings run effectively. But sadly, certain things cause derails to meetings productivity. Poorly designed objectives, Flat time-management, and lack of content preparation turn out to be the culprit things. All these eventually leads to wasting time in meetings. Ensuring a successful meeting should start at the preparation phase by designing a detailed plan in advance.

A meeting turns to no use if you are not ready with a prepared meeting plan.

5 key considerations to acknowledge before setting a meeting

Creating an agenda

Agendas are like blueprints and roadmaps that supports the meeting. Create an actionable agenda that identifies people for ad hoc space committee. Distribute the agenda among attendees to prepare with key discussed topics.

Scheduling the meeting

Identify people who must attend and notify them with meeting’s location and time. Make a scheduling grid, create an e-mailing list, double check with the prepared invite lists and draft the final notification including date, time and place. Schedule meeting using Google calendars.

Reserve meeting room space

Room arrangement affects a meeting’s set up. Arranging adequate meeting space that ideal for invited attendees brings out productive meeting. People should listen others without any difficulty by making their own space in the meeting area.

Circulating supportive information

Providing supporting materials to members prior to meeting empowers them with the key points to be discussed in a meeting. Also circulate information through URL’s instead of paper documents if required.

Setting meeting expectations

Analysing the progress from last meeting, setting the meeting expectations in prior shall help people in advance on why they need to be present. It allows to arrange a purposeful meeting and provides a descriptive on meeting topic.

Designing an effective agenda aids in setting clear expectations regarding what needs to consider before, during and after a meeting. This allows team members to get prepared, acknowledges the key points to be discussed, and do not waste time.

Usually, it is the role of the chairperson to outline the meeting purpose, plan with the meeting set ups and remind team members about their presence in meeting. To create effective meeting planner is the main responsibility of the meeting creator.

The key responsibilities include

• Defining clear and planned agenda for the meeting
• Pick right participants and secure them with right information
• Build right invite list of participants
• Find right meeting room that suits all participants
• Secure with catering services, if at all required
• Set with required equipment for presenting any seminars or AV in meeting
• Track the progress of the meeting with key note at the end

The key goal of setting a planned meeting is to review status of the work efforts for the week to accomplish team objectives. Moreover, it also provides clear oversight of information technology tactics, project programs, and risk management.

In the end, it is important to note the minutes of meeting so as to track the progress of the meeting efficiently. To write potent meeting minutes, the chairperson should include the agenda items, tasks or actions, calendar, participants’ decisions, and future verdicts. Taking minutes of meeting is crucial as recorded documentation help people to know what happened during and after the meeting. Writing notes also helps to outline the next step planned and track the progress of the meeting.

Keep your meetings concise and conducive to bring productive outcome.

Download meeting summary template here