Bantter Blog
The very mention of the word meeting causes us to roll our eyes. There’s good reason for this. Whether it is an internal meeting or a meeting with a client, most of them suffer from poor planning.
Here are a few questions that need to be asked even before setting up a meeting:
What are we discussing?
How much time will it take?
What do we hope to achieve at the end of the meeting?
Is everyone that is required for the meeting here?
When there is no preparation for a meeting, it’s just a waste of everyone’s time and effort, and this holds good for all meetings. Here are a few tips to make that happen:
a) Have a clear agenda for a meeting – Are we discussing quarterly results, or how to win more business? This might seem simple but the number of useless meetings that don’t have an agenda and bore everyone occur with alarming regularity. This means not enough effort has been put into setting a clear agenda.
Take away 1 – Clear agenda = better outcomes
b) Make better presentations – If the meeting involves a power point, work on making the presentation short, crisp and to the point. Use more visuals and fewer words. Don’t have ten bullet points on one slide. Don’t ramble endlessly. All of us have sat through boring and long-drawn presentations because we didn’t have a choice.
Take away 2 – Better presentations = effective meetings
c) Ask ‘can this just be an email’? – Very often, a meeting can be summed in a simple email. This means you can reduce the time you spend on needless meetings.
Take away 3 – Fewer needless meetings = happier people
d) Decide who you need for the meeting – If you need to address something personal or something that pertains to a few people, don’t call people who are not involved, it’s just a waste of their time.
Take away 4 – Fewer people = personalized attention
e) Break the monotony – Instead of having all meetings in the conference room, have one in a café. Sometimes, a change of place can do wonders.
Take away 5 – New
place = seeing things with fresh eyes
Better meetings enable you to create an effective project roadmap, setting you up for successful outcomes.