Meetings: An Excellent Tool When Used Correctly

I once was in a six hour, offsite meeting which "absolutely required my expertise and involvement". I probably said four things throughout the course of that meeting. Most of the time was spent focusing on issues which I had no control over nor any meaningful advise. I did, however, get plenty of time to enhance my doodling skills.

Sound familiar? Unfortunately, most meetings do little more than waste valuable time which could be spent working on other project tasks. Here's a short list of why meetings are misused:

• A manager suddenly realizes he does not have a grasp on project status so he calls everyone together without much warning or preparation.
• Someone wants to appear useful so they schedule meetings to facilitate this need.
• Someone wants to avoid doing work. Meetings are great time fillers.
• There was never really a project plan created so we need to figure out what's suppose to happen next.
• An outside stakeholder doesn't get it and wants everyone on the project team to explain what it is they are doing.

As a result of these reasons, many people have a negative attitude about participating in a meeting. They view it as a waste of their time when they could be doing something more productive. Or they have actual issues that need to be addressed but nothing is decided in the meeting leaving the participant frustrated that they can't get the answers they need to get a task done.

Meetings are an effective tool for evaluating a project's status and allowing team member's a chance to obtain additional feedback on their progress. Consider following these five points when holding your next meeting:

1. Schedule meetings on a regular basis and keep them as short as possible. When meetings become long, people tire and lose focus. If too many things need to be discussed, it probably means you are not meeting enough or need to break the agenda into more than one meeting.
2. Prepare a specific agenda and send it to the participants well in advance of the meeting. Make sure everyone has time to review any required materials prior to the meeting. If someone comes to the meeting unprepared, time will be wasted bringing them up to speed on topics that could have been researched outside the meeting.
3. Invite only those people who are responsible for something identified on the agenda. Taking time away from someone who do not have a stake in something on the agenda will only serve to delay a person from finishing another task. If you have people invited who will not be interested in several topics on the agenda, either break the agenda into more than one meeting or ask those individuals to only attend part of the meeting.
4. Focus on sticking to the agenda. If issues are identified as part of the discussion, don't spend too much time trying to solve them during the meeting. It might be helpful to specify the maximum amount of time that will be spent on a topic and designate someone to act as a timekeeper to make sure this time restriction is observed. If you begin discussing each item in too much detail, you will no doubt lose focus on the original agenda. Instead, record the problem and schedule an additional meeting to allow for a more in-depth discussion. This approach might seem like you are having a meeting just to make more meetings. But rescheduling a discussion for a later time will allow everyone to think through the problem more and ensure the issue gets the appropraite amount of discussion to find the best solution.
5. Do not let the meeting end without making final decisions. If several possible solutions were dicussed, make sure it is clear what the next steps will be and who needs to be involved. If participants leave the meeting confused about the outcome, the meeting had no value other than to create more bad feelings towards attending meetings.

Any time more than one person needs to work together to accomplish something, meetings will be necessary. However, ensuring that meetings actually serve to solve problems and move the project forward requires planning and discipline. When used correctly, meetings can significantly improve the execution of a project by providing project team members an effective venue to discuss issues and quickly find solutions.