This is the first in a mini-series of productivity insights I’ve collected over time that I present here in the hope that they may be of use to others. I’ll be following this up with my rules for project management in a couple of weeks' time.
Like many people, over my working life I have been involved in a lot of meetings. I have a love-hate relationship with them — I have been in some really great meetings, that were clearly structured, had real focus from those present, and resulted in clear decisions and actions that in some cases transformed projects for the better and delivered real success. I have also worked in organisations that had real problems with meeting-itis, with project and account managers filling up people’s calendars with pseudo-meetings in lieu of proper team communication, with people often arriving late and with no clear agenda or sense of purpose, ultimately wasting the time of the often large number of people who had been invited and leading to frustration for everyone involved.
Over the years I developed the below set of 10 rules and now implement them whenever I can. I have found that they keep everyone focussed and result in shorter, better meetings that actually drive projects along and motivate teams.
1. Do you actually need a meeting?
Consider if you actually need a meeting. Would it be better to have a conversation? Meetings are formal sessions with a clear goal that happen at a set time, involve prior preparation, and require full commitment from all attendees in order to make key decisions. A conversation is a 1–1 informal discussion that can last just a few minutes, can happen at any time and any place, and can often be more productive than inviting 10 people to a 30-minute meeting when all that is required is the simple sharing of information or ideas. Sometimes, better team communication is all that’s needed instead of multiple meetings.
2. Think 30, not 60
If you book an hour, you’ll take an hour. If you book 30 minutes, you’ll take 30 minutes. Keep meetings short and focussed. If you really need a three-hour meeting, then book three hours — but remember that’s the equivalent of six half-hour meetings. In such cases, it’s likely that you are actually organising a workshop session rather than a meeting, so call it that and prepare for it accordingly.
3. Nominate a chairman
One person should be in charge of the meeting, and it should be clear who this is. They should be someone with the responsibility to make decisions, assign actions and determine outcomes.
4. State the purpose of the meeting
Be clear about what you expect to achieve in the meeting. Include this in your meeting request, and be sure to open the meeting by summarising the purpose.
5. Have an agenda
It is vital that everyone knows what is going to be discussed and for how long. An agenda must have a list of items to be discussed, along with who is expected to lead each section and for how long. Include the agenda in your meeting request. No agenda, no meeting.
6. Start on time
Everyone should arrive a few minutes before the meeting begins, having read the agenda, so that the first item on the agenda can begin at the meeting start time. Meetings that start late disrupt everyone’s day.
7. Assign clear actions
The chairman of the meeting should assign actions that have arisen from the topics being discussed to clearly named individuals. These should be followed up at the next meeting to assess progress.
8. Don’t comment, only contribute
This rule came from my Dad and is probably one of the most valuable on this list in terms of having a productive workflow whilst actually in a meeting.
A comment is a statement without a clear course of action attached to it. A contribution drives the meeting forward and leads to action. You’ll be surprised how hard this is to stick to. You’ll also be surprised at how much shorter and more effective meetings will be by following this rule.
An example of a comment: “That won’t work for my team because they don’t have the necessary resources”.
An example of a contribution: “We should implement this approach because of reason X. To do it, we’ll need resources Y and Z.”
9. Send minutes
The topics discussed should be recorded and distributed to all attendees after the meeting, including any actions. This is the responsibility of the chairman but can be delegated by the chairman to someone else in the room.
10. End on time
When time is up, the meeting is over. If an item looks like it’s going to overrun, you can either postpone it for a future meeting or if it’s important enough then choose to postpone another item from the current agenda so you can continue the discussion. Either way, meetings should always end on time.