How to run productive meetings

Many of our diaries are stuffed full of meetings. In fact, research has shown that post-pandemic, people are attending 13% more meetings, whether virtual, in-person, or hybrid.

 

That means less time for other tasks, making time ever more precious.

 

Effective meetings are helpful to everyone involved, and are a good use of people’s time and effort. Here are some tips to running meetings that tick all the boxes.

 

 

Do you need a meeting at all?

 

First off, ask yourself if you really need a meeting at all. Sometimes a quick one-to-one chat with four different people will be more productive than trying to get everyone’s diaries to align for a meeting. Or maybe a few focused questions emailed to specific colleagues, or a chat on Slack or Teams, will do the job just as well.

 

 

Invite the right people

 

If you’re running a regular team meeting, it will be obvious who needs to be invited. But for one-off meetings or cross-organisational projects, you’ll need to be selective. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of the meeting? Who has the knowledge and expertise to reach the goal of the meeting? Who do you need present to support any decisions that are made? Less is more, so try and limit your attendees to those whose input is essential.

 

 

Set a clear agenda and appropriate timings

 

Think about how long you’ll realistically need to get people together for. For a weekly team meeting, maybe 30 minutes or an hour is enough. Whereas if you’re brainstorming a new campaign, you might want longer to delve into new ideas.

 

In some situations, you might find it useful to think of each agenda point as a question, rather than a topic. For example, instead of ‘Website review update’ you might reframe it as ‘How can we improve our website?’. Being faced with a question, invites people to engage differently with an issue and can spark more input.

 

 

Prioritise the agenda items

 

Always put the most pressing issues at the top of the agenda to make sure you have time to discuss them. Or if someone has to duck out of a meeting early, you might want to rejig the order to make sure they’re there to feed into any issues that affect them.

 

 

Brief people who are presenting

 

If you need people to speak on specific subjects, make sure they’re aware of it so they can prepare. Also make it clear how long they have to speak and what level of detail you’re after. That will prevent an allocated five-minute update spilling into a lengthy presentation. It’s easy for people to zone out when faced with overly-detailed slides on their screen.

 

 

Stick to the timings

 

Punctuality shows respect. Starting on time, and even more so, finishing on time, shows that you’re aware that everyone attending is likely to have a busy to-do list to get on with. 

 

With many meetings being virtual, there’s an even greater risk of people becoming disengaged – making it even more important to keep the meeting focused, tight and interactive.

 

 

Stay on track

 

It can be helpful to kick off a meeting with a reminder of why everyone is there and what you aim to achieve by the end of your time together. Keeping the meeting running to time can also help to keep everyone focused and engaged.

 

You might like to reference the agenda to keep on track, ask for any questions after each item, and summarise action points as you go along. We also share some tips on how to host an internal hybrid meeting.

 

 

Keep people engaged

 

If your camera’s off in a meeting, it’s easy to get distracted and start multi-tasking. As much as possible, keep people engaged in the conversations, asking for any questions and input. And there’s a lot to be said for being welcoming and thanking people for being there – a little appreciation can go a long way.

 

 

Have clear action points

 

If you’ve been in back-to-back meetings all day, it’s unlikely you’ll remember what you signed up to do on that 9am call. Have someone write clear action points as you go through, with a named person being accountable for delivering each item. They don’t have to be detailed notes – just enough to remind people what was discussed and keep everyone on track going forward.

 

 

Don’t get stuck in your ways

 

Just because you’ve always had a team catch-up at the start of every week, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. For regular meetings, ask for feedback on what’s working and what’s not. Would it be better to meet for a longer chunk of time mid-week? Or would swift daily catch-ups be more helpful?