How to: Effective meetings

Meetings are a powerful collaboration and communication tools in the workplace. When correctly used, they allow team members to come together and discuss important issues, share information, and make key decisions.

Nonetheless, meetings are often seen as a pain point for many workers in a company. Why? well because, if not handled properly, they can be time-consuming and disruptive to an individual's work schedule (therefore perceived as a waste of time and a drain on productivity).

“If not handled properly, meetings can be time-consuming and disruptive to an individual's work schedule”

Many meetings I have assisted (way more than I’d like to) were poorly run, had little structure or participation from attendees, making it difficult for individuals to stay engaged and focused. Furthermore, it's not uncommon for meetings to devolve into unproductive discussions or for decisions to be delayed due to lack of participation or preparation. All of these factors contribute to the perception that meetings are a nuisance rather than a valuable tool for achieving company goals.

Principles for effective meetings

Here are some principles that, under my perspective, will help you to establish good, effective meetings in the workplace.

1. ⏰ Limit to the schedule

It’s very common to attend meetings that end up being painfully extended due to extensive rambling. You have possibly assisted to more than one meeting where off-topic issues are brought to the table. This is highly unproductive (as well as bothersome if you happen to value your time).

A very easy way to solve this is imposing a very strict schedule that limits its length. A meeting starts at A and finishes at B, and it is during this time that the goals for the meeting must be accomplished. Keep it simple: if the goals are not meet during this time, another meeting must be scheduled. Also, be aware that too much spare/missing time regardless the initial schedule indicates a bad estimation of the duration.

2. ✅ Set clear objectives

In order for a meeting to be effective, we must clearly understand what are we trying to accomplish with it. Making all the participants fully aware of the target to be achieved helps to keep intentional and cohesive conversations around of-interest issues, as well as easily preventing the center of the discussion to deviate from the specific intention of the meeting. The conversation must orbit around the goals set for the meeting at any time. If for some reason this is not the case, it must be quickly driven back to the topic.

3. 📇 Define an agenda

The different parts that will be navigated in the meeting must be properly specified in advanced. This ensures that the meeting stays on track and focused and, again, helps preventing the meeting from devolving into unproductive discussions or tangents.

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A note on big-scoped meetings While I’m not a big fan of big-scoped meetings (goals are more difficult to define, therefore it’s easier to fall into non-specific, out-of-time conversations that results in non-effective meetings), sometimes it’s easier to attend various topics within the same meeting (e.g: it’s difficult to coordinate the different participants’ schedule). If that is the case, treat the different parts as micro-meetings where you can apply all these principles at a lower level.

4. ℹ️ Provide all necessary info in advance

In the case that the goals defined for the meeting require the participants to have access to certain information (e.g: the goal of the meeting is defining a solution, or make an agreement on certain topic), all the information must be introduced in advance for the participants to dispose of enough time to document themselves about the content.

Attending a meeting without the necessary information leaves you in a position where you are just “reacting” to the discussions and, trust me, taking reactive decisions in the business world is not usually a good idea.

5. 👥 Invite the minimum required assistants

I know it’s good to have an “everybody-on-board” mentality. But this rule should not be applied for most meetings (I’ve seen lots of invitations to meetings for people that are not involved-interested in it). Being very specific with the people that we want to involve is a crucial aspect of the planning: we should just call out only those people that will impact to the development of the meeting. Otherwise we are contaminating the meeting as well as making people lose valuable time.

Getting all together

Let’s see an example of a meeting card following the principles mentioned above:

Name	Frontend Architecture Resolution
Objective	Deciding the frontend architecture for client app.
Schedule	10.00 - 10:30 (30 min)
Agenda	1. Requirements exposition overview 2. Individual proposals 3. Discussion 4. Team votation
Info	* Link to client requirements * Link to UI app definition * Additional info

Conclusion

Having effective meetings is an important aspect of running a successful organization. Not only do meetings provide a platform for team members to collaborate and discuss important issues, but they also serve as a way to make decisions, assign tasks, and track progress. However, too often, meetings can be unproductive and a waste of time, leaving attendees feeling frustrated and demotivated.

In order to ensure that meetings are productive and valuable, it is important to carefully plan and prepare for them, establish clear goals and agendas, and involve all team members in the decision-making process. By following these principles, we can create meetings that are efficient, engaging, and ultimately contribute to the success of our team and organization.