Do you know what a great meeting feels like?

Updated by Tiago Araújo [SSW] 4 months ago. See history

123

Meetings don't have to be a drag. When they're done right, they actually help teams move faster and stay on the same page. Let's break down how to keep meetings focused, useful, and worth showing up for.

Why meetings often don't work well

There is a lot of discussion, but no resulting "action items"
Time is wasted digressing to unrelated topics
People do not attend because they forgot/missunderstood the date and time
People turn up late with no notice

Ensure productive and successful meetings

Create and share the meeting agenda prior to the meeting. If the discussion strays from the topic, the agenda will help you keep it on track
Send an appointment to all meeting attendees to ensure the meeting appears on their calendar
Make sure the presentation setup is working

Meeting appointments should have

A good subject, to let attendees know the purpose of the meeting
Details of the location, including full address and a link for directions/maps
The agenda, including all the points to be discussed (The final step in the agenda being "Set a date for the next meeting")
Enough time to go through the agenda
A note mentioning if the meeting is billable or not
Standard signature (as in email messages)

For attendees

Remember to accept the meeting invitation
If you are going to be late, contact the organizer or the person in charge of the meeting to let them know that you are running late and what time you will be arriving

To:

Bob Northwind

Subject:

Let's have a meeting

Meeting time at 8

❌ Figure: Bad example - Meeting with bad subject, no agenda, and lack of information

To:

Bob Northwind

Subject:

Northwind App - React project

Hi Mr. Northwind

Looking forward to our meeting at 8AM.

Agenda

Choose booking functionality name
Approve the release plan
Check the post-production steps
Show the two sample videos
Set a date and time for the next meeting

Notes:

See directions and map to SSW Sydney
The account manager is not billable, the developers are billable

Regards, David SSW Software Developer | Sydney, Australia | Phone: +61 X XXX XXXX

✅ Figure: Good example - Meeting appointment with a good subject, the agenda, and more useful information

After the meeting

The primary objective of most meetings should be to establish clear next steps. Make them action items and assign them to the right people
To improve future meetings, at the end of the meeting, do a quick debrief to see how long the meeting took, if anything was covered that didn't need to be, etc