three functional purposes for meetings

 …there are only three functional purposes for having a business meeting:

1. To inform and bring people up to speed.

2. To seek input from people.

3. To ask for approval.

Use this as a filter to determine why you are having a meeting and explain that purpose to your audience. Your meetings may often cut across multiple objectives but forcing yourself to clarify the agenda into these three purposes can result in more effective meetings.

Anthony K. Tjan

“The Key to Shorter, Better Meetings,” Harvard Business Review. June 23, 2009 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.

meeting plus/delta

End the meeting with a plus/delta. If your team meets regularly, two questions form a simple continuous improvement process: What did we do well? What do we want to do differently for the next meeting? Investing five or ten minutes will enable the team to improve performance, working relationships, and team member satisfaction. Here are some questions to consider when identifying what the team has done well and what it wants to do differently:

• Was the agenda distributed in time for everyone to prepare?
• How well did team members prepare for the meeting?
• How well did we estimate the time needed for each agenda item?
• How well did we allocate our time for decision making and discussion?
• How well did everyone stay on-topic? How well did team members speak up when they thought someone was off-topic?
• How effective was the process for each agenda item?

To ensure that your team follows through, review the results of the plus/delta at the beginning of the next meeting.

Roger Schwarz

“How to Design an Agenda for an Effective Meeting,” Harvard Business Review. March 19, 2015 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.

review and modify agenda as needed

Make the first topic “review and modify agenda as needed.” Even if you and your team have jointly developed the agenda before the meeting, take a minute to see if anything needs to be changed due to late breaking events. I once had a meeting scheduled with a senior leadership team. As we reviewed the agenda, I asked if we needed to modify anything. The CEO stated that he had just told the board of directors that he planned to resign and that we probably needed to significantly change the agenda. Not all agenda modifications are this dramatic, but by checking at the beginning of the meeting, you increase the chance that the team will use its meeting time most effectively.

Roger Schwarz

“How to Design an Agenda for an Effective Meeting,” Harvard Business Review. March 19, 2015 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.

who is responsible for leading each topic?

Identify who is responsible for leading each topic. Someone other than the formal meeting leader is often responsible for leading the discussion of a particular agenda item. This person may be providing context for the topic, explaining data, or may have organizational responsibility for that area. Identifying this person next to the agenda item ensures that anyone who is responsible for leading part of the agenda knows it — and prepares for it — before the meeting.

Roger Schwarz

“How to Design an Agenda for an Effective Meeting,” Harvard Business Review. March 19, 2015 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.

never hold a meeting just to update people

“If you’re already meeting for worthwhile topics, you can do a quick update,” says Axtell. You might say at the end, Is there anything that the group needs to be aware of before we leave? Is there something going on in your department that others needs to be know about? “But if you’re only meeting to transfer information, rethink your approach. Why take up valuable time saying something you can just email?” says Axtell.

And update meetings aren’t just time-wasters. Gino explains that research by Roy Baumeister, Kathleen Vohs and their colleagues suggests that we have a limited amount of what they call “executive” resources. “Once they get depleted, we make bad decisions or choices,” says Gino. “Business meetings require people to commit, focus, and make decisions, with little or no attention paid to the depletion of the finite cognitive resources of the participants — particularly if the meetings are long or too frequent,” says Gino. She finds something similar in her own research: that “depletion of our executive resources can even lead to poor judgment and unethical behavior.” So if you can avoid scheduling yet another meeting, you should.

Amy Gallo

“The Condensed Guide to Running Meetings,” Harvard Business Review. July 6, 2015 as quoted in HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter. Harvard Business Review Press. 2016.