My Thoughts on Running Effective Meetings

After having a discussion at work about how to run an effective meeting and reading a NYT piece on meetings, I started to give the topic some thought. Regardless if you work for a big corporation, are in school, or work at a small start-up, meetings are going to be a fact of life. Just like email unfortunately is. So since we have to deal with meetings let's at least take the time to understand how to make them worth our time.

There are two type of people that come to a meeting, the meeting owner and the meeting attendees. It's important to understand which you are because it will drastically determine what you do before, during, and after the meeting.

Meeting Owner

Before:

• Send out a clear objective of the meeting so that everyone is clear what the purpose of the meeting is
• Send out questions and reference material to allow attendees to begin to form their thoughts
• Invite the right people 
• All the logistical things like rooms, projectors, VC equipment, etc

During:

• Assign someone to take notes if you aren't going to, making sure they keep track of action items
• Introduce everyone if it's the first time people are meeting to help set context
• Set the agenda from the beginning of the meeting
• Play time keeper. Make sure you cover what you set out to cover
• Do your best to include everyone in the meeting
• Take the last few minutes of the meeting to do a recap and cover what action items came up

After:

• Send out notes from the meeting making sure to highlight action items
• Clearly state if the meting met it's objective or if another meeting will need to occur

It is my opinion that the person who calls the meeting is on the hook for it going smoothly. Their preparation and attitude towards the meeting will go along way in making it successful. Next time you are in a great meeting compliment the person who ran it!

Meeting Attendee

Before:

• Make sure that you review the objective of the meeting and be sure it makes sense for you to attend. Value your time, not all meetings need you so make sure you prioritize.
• Read any relevant material before the meeting
• Jot down some notes about things you want to say. It will make you sound much more articulate when you decide to speak up

During:

• Don't talk to much. I recently red the traffic light rule for talking which I think is wonderful. "During the first 30 seconds of an utterance, your light is green: your listener is probably paying attention. During the second 30 seconds, your light is yellow -- your listener may be starting to wish you'd finish. After the one-minute mark, your light is red: Yes, there are rare times you should "run a red light:" when your listener is obviously fully engaged in your missive."
• Take personal notes

After:

• Follow through on any action items that you owned
• Give feedback on how the meeting went to the person who called it

There is nothing here that is more than advanced common sense, but even my elementary attempt at outlining how to run effective meetings is neglected daily. Instead of complaining about bad meetings, start doing the little things to make them more effective.

Questions:

• What would you add to the list of things the Meeting Owner should do?
  
• What would you add to the list of things the Meeting Attendee should do?
  
• Do you disagree with anything here?
• Do you have general comments?