How to Effectively Manage Meetings
Here is a common scenario clients share with me:
As a leader, you’re proud that you meet regularly with your team and provide a forum to discuss important business items rather than ad hoc discussions or hallway conversations. Each week, the team keeps its commitment to meet and discuss critically important items. At the meeting everyone is engaged and passionate about the subjects and usually, everyone has an opinion. Good meeting, but as you leave you have mixed emotions. This is nothing new – you feel there was ‘great discussion’ and yet, you are frustrated that there’s no clear path forward, you’re not sure who’s leading which outcomes and you feel like time was wasted rehashing an item that was clearly decided a few meetings ago. You know these meetings can be more effective but you’re not sure how to make that happen.
Likely there were two key items missing from your meeting:
An AGENDA
An ACTION REGISTER
Here are 3 Steps for Successful Meetings and how Agendas and Action Registers help:
- Always have an AGENDA!
Agendas are the meat and potatoes of any productive meeting. A good agenda contains:
- Agenda items
- Duration
- Who is lead for that item
- What is needed from the team?
- (I) Nothing is needed – the lead will provide information to the team
- (IN) – Information is needed from the team,
- (D) – a decision is needed
- (DN) – the item it’s up for discussion and thoughts on next steps
Sample Agenda
- Capture DECISIONS MADE!
During the meeting, as each item is discussed and completed, it’s important to determine if a decision was made and if so, to capture it appropriately. This is a significant point which most meeting leaders overlook.
It’s important to close a discussion properly and this is usually done with a decision. Then it’s important to document when the decision was made and who was at the meeting*. Was everyone aligned? Any dissenters? Often the team may think they reached a decision but the key decision maker was not in the room. That’s a problem and can lead to confusion and error, wasted time and resources. It’s also important to determine if, when making this decision, Is there any further action needed to keep this decision actionable from here forward?
Capture all of these details in the COMMENTS Column.
*Some teams like to record attendees on the top of the document as a record for future discussion – For instance, a decision was made on X date but the VP in charge of that group was not at the meeting – OOPS! Was someone assigned to follow up with him/her? No idea, it’s not documented anywhere. Using this format helps keep everything clear and connected and the right people informed, in the right way, at the right time.
- You now have an ACTION REGISTER to guide the team toward next meeting
All of the information now contained in the above Agenda document becomes the Action Register – Agenda + Decisions Made + Due Date + Comments – and prepares you for the next meeting and the work time in between. There is clarity on what actions are moving forward and which are not, who is leading, what activities should happen next and when will they be completed or ready.
When an item is completed it can be removed, but stays on the historical documents. Some people like to keep a separate page for COMPLETED ITEMS which works well, or you can simple put the words COMPLETE in the comments column beside the appropriate item.
From the ACTION REGISTER you can easily begin building the AGENDA for the next meeting:
Agenda Item 1:
-Update on new building purchase
-Who’s the lead? Sam – Sam is responsible for providing details on what he needs at the meeting:
- He may need a decision, be providing information or need more information from the team.
- Sam is also responsible for advising how much time he needs on the Agenda.
This 3-step process is easy to use and keeps you on track each week with items being documented, decisions recorded and action items clearly agreed to and ownership assigned.
With these two documents in hand and an easy 3-step process to guide you, you’re off to a great start toward taking your meetings to the next level.
If you wish to receive the AGENDA and ACTION REGISTER documents, please contact me and I’ll be happy to send them to you.
Wishing you success!
