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More and more people are complaining about ineffective meetings. At our last project we had this problem as well and struggled a lot at the beginning. But we decided to do some research and the following practices helped us to get the most out of our meetings.
Meetings are optional by default
If somebody is not affected or has nothing to contribute than there is no reason to for this person to attend the meeting. Additionally the time could be spend more productively by keeping on working.
Occasionally somebody is in the middle of something or even close to a breakthrough. If this person has to stop, more time is needed afterwards to dive into the problem again.
However, as consequence thereof everyone not attending a meeting has to accept the results.
There is an objective and an agenda
The responsible who sent out the meeting must set up an email including the goal and an agenda. It is sent out some time in advance so people can prepare if necessary, decide if they should attend, etc.
The agenda needs to be time-boxed
Now that there is an agenda it is possible to create time-boxes for all activities. Those help to stay focused, so 70% of the time is not spend on the first topic (I think that happened to all of us). If there is not enough time for an item, maybe it is important enough to create another meeting for it.
Extract action items
After the meeting it will be clear if it was worth it or not. Now it should be possible to create new action items. As everybody is on the same page and the new topics were elaborated, this part should be easy. If this is not the case, the meeting was maybe obsolete in the first place² or another one is needed.
Summarize the result
Each attendance and everyone who is interested should receive a short summary including the action items. Doing so enables them t spread the word and tell the colleagues in two to three sentences about it.
If you have other methods that worked for you, please let me know.
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(1) www.dilbert.com/
(2) There will be a another post that will help you to find that out before the meeting
Great!
ReplyDelete* Meetings are optional by default *
ReplyDeleteAgreed, however, also consider complex programs/projects in which information sharing is crucial to achieve the set objectives. In some cases people do not know what they actually need to know. Little knowledge could lead to uninformed decisions (stemming from too little qualitative or quantitative research) and in the worst case to project failure.
* Extract action items & Summarize the result *
In my opinion the challenge is to create action items with realistic dates, respective action owners and to discuss how they are followed-up on. Additionaly I’d create meeting minutes with not only action items but also with informative or decision items and let the meeting attendees “sign-off” (=agree) on their items.
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ReplyDelete