Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Push for More Productive Meetings

Life intensifies in the summer as we try to juggle work and home life during the short, sweet vacation season. Yet, it’s nearly impossible to cancel every meeting and postpone every project until the fall. One high leverage opportunity—get better at conducting meetings and work sessions. You’ll feel better about scheduling the time and the team will be more energetic, enthusiastic and productive. Here are some techniques I’ve found to be helpful.

1) Always, always have an agenda with clear objectives for the meeting. Send it out ahead of time; help the team prepare to use the time well by supplying any documents or pre-reading that you can.

2) Identify a good location that provides quiet space, no distractions, reasonably comfortable seating (preferably with a table) and a flip chart/ white board for capturing ideas. An excellent (and greener option) is to use a laptop and projector to capture brainstorming ideas electronically and project them up on the wall for the team to reference.

3) Set ground rules and post them. It will be easier to pull folks back on to the agenda if the team has agreed to “stay on the subject.” If you have “chatters” who dominate the discussion, a ground rule about sharing speaking time, assists the chair in cutting them off.

4) Start and end on time; don’t reward latecomers. Be respectful of those in attendance and get them out the door as promised.

5) Keep a meeting record of decisions, assignments and next steps. Distribute it in a timely manner. Again, a laptop can help efficiently capture meeting ideas in one smooth key stroke, so to speak.

6) If the agenda just isn't working, stop and revise it. Don’t waste time on discussion items that are not helpful. Learn to read the group and improvise as needed.

7) Learn and use online meeting tools. Doodle.com and meetingwizard.com are great free tools for scheduling meetings. Meeting wizard also has tools for creating agendas and minutes.

8) Use online meeting tools to work on documents together online. Google Docs and pbworks.com provide real time access to documents and project work. The team can update and revise documents together. You can post the project workplan, meeting schedule and other team information.

Budgets are tight, time is compressed, and we are all protective of our schedules. Gain the reputation for scheduling and conducting valuable meetings. You’ll have better attendance and more enthusiastic participants.

Any tips to share for more productive meetings?