Pro’s Tips to Planning and Running Effective Meetings

People generally do not like meetings as it sometimes seems like a waste of time with little takeaways, and nothing gets accomplished.  With few rare exceptions, meetings do not produce any goods or services.  While there are many articles and journals published providing guidance on how to run a meeting, Les MacLeod, a professor of health management and policy from University of New Hampshire states, “There has been little evidence that meeting productivity has changed” (MacLeod, 2011).  In no way is this article the magic silver bullet that will revolutionize business meetings, it is just a reminder of a few tips that past experts have researched and gathered of what to think about before even calling that important meeting.

Although there are many different types of meetings which serve different purposes, two distinctly different meetings are: (1) daily or frequent team huddles and (2) ad hoc or recurring business meetings.  These meetings serve different purposes based on the magnitude of its purpose or agenda.  The team huddles are typically daily with the purpose of identifying any obstacles that could arise during the day and the business meetings is typically a brainstorming meeting where everyone shares their viewpoints.  Both types of meetings have the purpose of developing a solution.  The team huddle is more focused on identifying the obstacles that could have a quick solution while the longer business meeting may require more in depth into an identified problem and coming up with solutions.

The Huddles or Standup Meetings

Agile Project Managers and Nurses typically use daily huddles at the beginning of their day to review the daily schedules and tasks.  The purpose of these meetings for example, yet not limited to, is to identify any obstacles such as staff call outs, depleting resources, or surge in work or activities.  The team leads would bring up their potential challenges while the team comes up with quick solutions.  This is not a problem-solving meeting.  If an obstacle is identified that cannot be quickly or easily resolved, that would be the time for the manager or facilitator to decide if a more topic focused meeting should be called or if that is something the manager or lead should focus on addressing in finding both a short term and long-term solution.

When teams meet up in huddles it also opens the communication channels and prevents needless back and forth emails potentially wasting valuable time.  The main element of the standup meeting is that everyone stands up (when possible).  The reason is that the meeting should be short, direct, and to the point.

Retrospective Meetings

Once a milestone is reached or a Sprint has been completed, that is the time to run a retrospective meeting.  These meetings have their own built-in agenda in that the team looks back to evaluate the progress of each sprint, completed project or milestone and works to make necessary adjustments to improve the processes or workflow.

Other Types of Meetings

While Standup and Retrospective meetings have a very specific purpose, there are other meetings which, although have a purpose, a more detailed reason as to “why” is necessary.  The Project Management Institute (PMI) identifies some other types of meetings such as, but not limited to, kick-off, technical, sprint or iteration planning, steering group, problem solving, and progress update (Project Management Institute, 2017).

With any meeting it is important to make it clear before the meeting begins that the following two questions are addressed: (1) What needs to get done; and (2) Why hold the meeting (MacLeod, 2011)?  When meetings are called it is important to respect the time of the participants in the meeting as well as realized the cost of holding a meeting. 

Every Meeting Must Have a Clear Agenda

Standup and Retrospective meetings, by definition, may have its own purpose and agenda, yet even those meetings would run smoother with a clear direction as to why the meeting is needed.  If there is a recurring meeting, it may be a good idea to draft up a meeting charter.  Just like a project charter that authorizes the existence of the project, the meeting charter acknowledges the existence of the meeting.  Consider some of the elements of a project charter: (a) it provides a direct link between the project and strategic objectives, (b) shows organizational commitments to the project, and (c) provides authority to apply organizational resources to the project activities (Project Management Institute, 2017).  This principle can apply to a meeting as well: (1) provides a link between the meeting and strategic objectives for the meeting (2) shows commitment to the meeting, and (3) recognizes the need to apply organizational resources for the meeting.

Be Mindful of Resources

How often do we consider the cost of calling a meeting?  Typically, unless the meeting is with a consultant or a lawyer who charges and invoices for every minute of their time, people do not realize or pay no concern of the cost of calling a staff meeting.  In almost all cases, no services or products are being produced from a meeting.  Most meetings are exchanging viewpoints and ideas to develop a strategy which team members take back to develop a product or service.  Depending on the people involved in the meeting, when considering their hourly wage, a meeting could cost several hundred to several thousand dollars for one hour.  In other cases, if a service professional is pulled from service for a meeting, and is not billing for that meeting, there could be lost revenue for that provider to attend the meeting.  Consider pulling a physician from clinic seeing patients.  The physician generates revenue based on the number of patients seeing in clinic or number of procedures performed.  If the physician is in a meeting, he or she is not performing his or her service which brings in revenue.  MacLeod poses a question, “Are there other less time-consuming alternatives that would accomplish the intended purpose just as well?” (MacLeod, 2011).  In an article from Armed Forces Comptroller, Frank Sackton provided some guidelines identifying unnecessary meetings to avoid.  One advice Sacton suggests is to ask the following questions, “Is the meeting being called to exchange information or viewpoints?  If the meeting is to discuss viewpoints, it is probably a necessary conference.  If the meeting is strictly to distribute information, the meeting is probably unnecessary” (Sacton, 1993).

Inviting the Right Participants

“When two men in a business always agree, one of them is unnecessary

-William Wrigley, Jr.

While it is important to invite participants who will provide critical input and value serving the purpose of the meeting, it is also important to not extend invitations to too many people either.  I was in a weekly one-hour status check meeting with a consulting group who would invite four to five members of their team to these meetings.  While every member was important to the project, not everyone participated in every meeting.  For a while there was no clear agenda to each meeting, just a check list of tasks.  When a task came up that required some input or brainstorming, that topic of discussion would take up much of the meeting’s time and some invited guests in the meeting would not participate for a few minutes if not at all.  Meanwhile, the time the consultant spent attending the meeting (the entire hour) is being charged to the client.

Maintain Control of the Meeting

Just as lack of planning and poor leadership can result in a project to experience scope creep, the same holds true for meetings.  According to PMI, “The uncontrolled expansion to product or project scope without adjustments to time, cost, and resources is referred to as scope creep” (Project Management Institute, 2017).  Consider a meeting that goes astray from the agenda yet uses up the same amount of time and cost (or revenue loss) of resources scheduled.  It becomes a waste of time and money as the meeting has gone off track and drifting from its planned goal.  In an article from Academic Leader, it addresses the importance of having a designated facilitator.  This person is typically the convener of the meeting; however, this could be anyone who is assigned this responsibility.  The article states this person needs to recognize when remarks to off the agenda, point it out and turn the conversation back on topic (Holding Effective Meetings, 2004).

The Participants

It is important to keep participants engaged and remain professional.  Every participant should serve a purpose taking on an active role (never a passive) providing valuable input.  Remember, every minute a participant is in the meeting valuable money is being spent.  Every participant is either being paid to participate or losing money not tending to their business generating revenue.  “Participants need to know precisely why they’re there: Is, for instance, the object of the meeting to make a final, hard decision on an issue — say, including a new class in the curriculum, hiring a new person, using funds for a particular purpose — or is it is just to make a recommendation?” (Holding Effective Meetings, 2004).  This goes back to the idea of having a clear agenda and possibly a meeting charter to clearly point out the purpose of having the meeting before the meeting participants convene.

Although it may sound cliché, know your audience!  Also, know what you want from your audience or the group.  Visual presentations are affective, and there are many resources on preparing visual presentations; however, in a stand-up or huddle, visualization may not be necessary.  Brainstorming sessions may require a clean whiteboard while data analysis may require prepared charts and spreadsheets.  Assume the participants are not prepared.  While it is important to supply participants with resources they will need to prepare for the meeting, assume they are arriving not having done their homework and have a copy ready for them in the meeting.

Document the Meeting

Meetings should be documented especially if there are key points and decisions made during the meeting.  Depending on the nature of the meeting, an independent, neutral person who is not participating in the meeting should be assigned as a recorder, especially if the nature or topic of the meeting is sensitive or controversial (Holding Effective Meetings, 2004).  The exception to this would be the daily standup meetings; however, there is an exception to that as well.  The daily standup meeting is typically a quick status check on what was completed, what will be completed, and what obstacles may obstruct the completion of a task or assignment.  Rarely will there be key takeaways or major decisions significantly impacting the project or team’s objectives coming out of a daily standup.  However, in rare cases it could happen and when it does it should be documented or noted.

Conclusion

Time is money and putting together a meeting, like everything else in business, should have a return on investment.  Consider the output of the meeting and the necessary resources.  In summary:

• Identify the type of meeting
• Have a clear purpose and agenda
• Develop a charter for the meeting when necessary
• Consider if there are there less time-consuming and less expensive alternatives to conducting a meeting
• Avoid unnecessary meetings
• Be mindful of the resources needed for the meeting
• Maintain control of the meeting
• Assign a recorder to take meeting minutes

The meeting must be a bridge to innovation and synergistic thinking to achieve the desired results serving the purpose of the meeting.  The takeaways should be the strategies for the success of the organization.

“The one who figures on victory at headquarters before even doing battle is the one who has the most strategic factors on his side”

-Sun Tzu, trans. 1998

References

Holding Effective Meetings. (2004). Academic Leader, 20(8), 2-3.

MacLeod, L. (2011). Conducting a Well-managed Meeting. Physician Executive, 37(6), 80-85.

Project Management Institute. (2017). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK guide) (6th ed.). Project Management Institute.

Sacton, F. (1993). How to plan and conduct effective meetings. Armed Forces Comptroller, 38(4), 28.