Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Is this meeting really necessary?

I have attended many meetings in which nothing was accomplished. It was like sitting at a ballgame with no players. I have clients who have daily and weekly meetings with their boss with no root objective, just to meet to talk about 'what's going on.' These kinds of meetings are time wasters and productivity killers. The next time you think you need to call a meeting, ask yourself the following:

  1. What is the purpose? What is it I need to accomplish?
  2. Will there be action items for attendees to report on at a later date?
  3. Is follow-up needed? If so, how often?
  4. Do I need an agenda?

I ask that last question because for a meeting to be effective and meet goals and objectives there needs to be an agenda and it should be followed. If no agenda is needed, in other words, a meeting that serves as a follow-up or FYI (for your information) then perhaps a teleconference or an update by email would suffice. Here are a few tips on how to host effective meetings.

I find it amazing that people go to 2 or 3 meetings a day (or more) and come out of them more confused and frustrated than when they went in; furthermore, unproductive meetings reduce productivity to accomplish other tasks. So, from now on, think before you meet and save yourself some time and energy.


 


 

3 comments:

Kissa said...

Thank you for the information. I find that I have gone to a number of meetings where I had absolutely nothing to contribute because I felt that there was no structure and nothing was actually said. We have them every other week and I know that my supervisor wants to touch base but like you said this can be done in a simple email. I also liked how you said that if the meeting does not need an agenda then why do you need a meeting in the first place and I agree with this. Meeting should be scheduled because there are actual things to talk about as opposed to needing to attend for the sake of a meeting and wasting valuable time when work could be getting done.

Kissa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Great information on meeting. I am in search of lovely corporate event venues San Francisco for arranging my company’s event. Came to know about few good venues and looking forward to book the right venue for this meeting.