Modern organizations and a lot of people have a culture for meetings. There are monthly, weekly and even daily meetings happening in a lot of companies. Even if the motives of meeting are valid, the way they are organized and what happens there is just a waste of time and resources.
Here are some things to consider doing in order to make meetings more productive:
- If it’s an internal meeting consisting of a product or idea presentation, send the presentation upfront by email, and make the meeting a Q&A where you can focus on questions and your arguments and not the slides
- Make sure that only the people who are vital to the meeting are invited. If some people should be there just to assist at the conversation get someone to make a meeting minutes file and send it to everyone involved
- Make sure everything is set up for the meeting, the projector and the presentation are working, the materials are printed
- Start on time, not a second later. If someone is late don’t allow them to enter
- If it’s not meant to be a long meeting don’t bring chairs into the room. People love comfort, so, if not seated, people will tend to finish as fast as possible.
- Finish as soon as possible, if you need to have a conversation with a smaller group or just one person invite the people who don’t have to be there to leave and see to their work
- If you have people from outside the company coming to the meeting make sure that they are directed to their places and the materials for the meeting are already available
- If someone arrives early ask if they would like internet access to do some work before it starts
All these things will make sure that the meeting will be more efficient, but these are just some examples of how you can improve your meetings. You can find a lot more depending on your company and meeting specific.
This will make you think twice before setting a meeting and thus only having important, productive meetings.