How to: Run a successful meeting

One inescapable aspect to working in a corporate environment is the never ending stream of meetings that clog up your daily calendar. Team meetings, project meetings, workshops, focus groups, development planning catchups……they just never end. What I’ve also noticed is that meetings are one thing that people just love to complain about. They’re too long, they don’t achieve anything, there’s too many people, there aren’t enough people, they run over time; whatever the reason, many are inclined to get someone else to take notes rather than go through the rigours of attending themselves.

Whilst I interpret many of these complaints as people just being plain lazy, there is a degree of merit to some of them. On many occasions I’ve left meetings wondering why I was there, what was achieved, and how I’m going to get that hour of my time back. What I’ve come to realise is that the success of a meeting typically comes down to the level of planning undertaken by the meeting chair. So, when it comes to running your own meeting, my tips are as follows:

• Know your purpose. The most important aspect to any meeting is to clearly define what you are trying to achieve by getting together. It may be to determine a new product structure, set a project timeline, or just for a status update. Make sure that this is communicated to all who are attending.
• Set an agenda. If you want people to come prepared and to get involved, then they have to be able to plan for the meeting as well. The only way they can plan is if they know exactly what is being covered, so make sure you distribute an agenda along with your meeting invitation. Even nominate various invitees to own particular sections if you believe this will be more appropriate.
• Invite the right people. This may sound obvious, but it’s amazing how often people get this wrong. If you’re not sure, ask around, talk to the people who have the knowledge in the subject matter, and ask them who they think should be there. It’s a disaster if a key person is not there because you overlooked them, and it’s almost as bad if you invite people who have no real need to be involved.
• Plan ahead of time. One thing that often seems to be overlooked is booking an appropriate room. Make sure the room is equipped with the right resources (e.g projector), and make sure it is big enough. There’s nothing worse than having 20 people crammed into a 6 person meeting room. The best way to ensure you can book an adequate room when people are available is to book well ahead of time.
• Record minutes and action items. Another thing I’ve found is that not many people like to write things down. This can lead to huge problems when someone is verbally assigned a task which is never completed because they forgot about it the minute they left the room. Make sure that key decisions, assumptions, issues, risks and action items are recorded, along with owners and dates for completion (if appropriate). Type them up and send them out within 24 hours of the meeting. Then start the next meeting by reviewing all the action items from the previous one.
• Keep the meeting to the point. If the discussion gets side tracked, bring it back in line. It’s your meeting, so you have to keep it under control. Otherwise, you run the risk of running over time and/or not addressing some of the important topics that you had planned to cover.

I read a great article a couple of weeks ago about how Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice-president of search products, likes to run her meetings. This is a brilliant read and has some excellent pointers on how to extend the above even further in order to ensure maximum meeting efficiency.

If you have any tips on organising and running meetings, be sure to let us know with some comments below.

Thanks for reading!
-Howo