The best use of you Business Meeting time

1. Decide if you really need the meeting. Before setting up a meeting, ask yourself if it’s really needed. Weigh up the meeting cost in man hours against the anticipated value it will add. This seems like a no-brainer but it’s very easy with repetitive meetings to just keep doing them because they’re scheduled rather than because they’re worthwhile. It’s easier to assess value with one-off meetings arranged to arrive at a defined outcome than it is with regular status meetings that have a more open-ended agenda. So it’s a judgment call but one that should be made prior to scheduling any meeting.

2. Plan and structure meetings. All meetings need some structure, so publish the objective and an agenda up front even if it’s just a few key bullet points (with guideline time slots, ideally). Pick a sensible timeframe but err on the short side; typically, meetings will fill the time allocated for them. Also, longer meetings are harder to fit into people’s busy schedules. Avoid contiguous meetings wherever possible—those that attend several in a row will lose much of what they took away from the first few. There is no ideal length for a meeting; duration depends on purpose, but 30 minutes is a good default. (Regular meetings that run for several hours and tie up a large team are really only worthwhile if you’re involved in negotiating an international peace treaty or planning a space mission).

3. Choose your audience wisely. It’s great to share information across the entire project team and keep everyone involved but consider the impact on productivity (and your budget!). Employing a collaborative project management tool can help reduce meeting attendance as well. Since the entire team can view the big picture and clearly see how their own tasks are impacting project progress, this eliminates the project manager’s need to separately author and deliver status updates.

4. Organize the information. Prep and publish any supporting information early so it can be reviewed by the attendees ahead of the meeting. You’re unlikely to get sign-off on a 200 page technical spec if the first version they see is the monster hard copy you hand out at the start.

5. Start on time. The published meeting start time is when the talking starts; not when you expect people to turn up. When you do begin, reiterate objectives, who’s leading the meeting, and who’s taking the notes. Few meetings warrant lengthy minutes (and the time spent producing them) but I’d recommend that teams keep a record of any key decisions made, and keep an action log.