How to conduct efficient meetings?

This document captures the guidelines, procedures, protocols, and pitfalls for conducting an effective meeting.

 

Pre-Meeting

• You call it, you own it.

The person who calls the meeting has to own and drive the meeting. In case the meeting is called on behalf of someone else then the person who is going to drive the meeting should be clearly defined along with the invitation for the meeting. It is the responsibility of the person who drives the meeting to ensure the basics compliance are met.

 

• Establish Hard edges

The meeting has to be defined with a clear boundary i.e the assumptions and foundation and the context from which the meeting or discussion has to be carried out. A big failure of meetings are if participants open already closed or agreed points.

 

• Create an Agenda

The ‘Hard Edges’ have to drill down to a detailed agenda for the meeting. Why is the meeting called for? A good agenda should be framed with verbs like ‘decide’, ‘finalize’, ‘close’ etc. Another way to make the meeting effective is to re-iterate the end in mind. i.e State the things that would have happened if the meeting would have been successful before the meeting. Or another way to this is – ‘State the desired outcome. What is to be achieved?’ Having stated this before the meeting, all energies can be focused on achieving the objective of the meeting.

• Preparation/Pre-read

A meeting is an expensive affair for the company. The cost of the meeting can be simply calculated by the cost of no of people times the duration of the meeting. The company expects its employees to value their time and as well as others time. Hence, it is a must that preparation work be allotted before the meeting and people come prepared with relevant work done. To make the meeting more effective relevant data needs to be shared to all stakeholders to read and come pre-prepared. This pre-read brings the attendees on the same page, avoids unnecessary educative discussion consuming everyone’s time.

In case of routine or regular meeting, the pre-read may not be necessary and may not be shared but this has to be mutually agreed by the attendees before the meeting.

• Don’t fit meeting in the allotted time rather allot time to fulfil the meeting

The meeting has to be planned with a proper time budget. This is the responsibility of the person calling the meeting. The attendees have to share a common goal to complete the meeting in the time once allotted respecting everyone’s schedule post the meeting. In case of delays the attendees can mutually decide to extend the meeting if it fits everyone’s schedule or call for another meeting on some other time slot, when everyone is available.  

• Attendance Sheet

The invitation should have a clear attendance sheet of attendees. It is fine for people to be kept as an optional attendance for a participant. The person calling the meeting has to be empathetic of everybody’s time and unnecessary participants should not be called for the meeting.

• Food & Beverage

The Person calling the meeting or the designated coordinator should plan and call for any beverage, snacks etc before the meeting starts rather than disturb meeting in the middle.

• Where we left off?

The chair has to ensure that participants have to review and circulate the old MOM with status of the tasks along with the circulation of the pre-read material for the meeting. Attendees attending the meeting should review the old MOM if any and go through the Pre-read material before coming for the meeting

• Mobile Phone

A meeting is a strictly a ‘silent’ zone. Any urgent calls to be taken with due permission of the attendees and should be taken outside the meeting space.

• Invitation & Resources

The chair has to ensure that a meeting invitation has to be sent well in advance which should clearly state the location, time, place and any other resources required. The person calling meeting should make the necessary arrangement before the meeting starts and should validate the connections of wires, relevant software etc. to avoid last minute technical issues. The relevant conference room has to be reserved to avoid two meeting planning the same room at the same time. This is a classic mistake of scheduling but not reserving.

• Changes

Any changes in the time, place, location, agenda, or other any change in topics relevant to stakeholders should be notified to all. This responsibility lies with person calling meeting or person calling the change.

• Absence

Any absence from the meeting should be planned with stakeholders in advance. In case the requirement of the attendee is must then the team can decide to postpone the meeting fitting everyone’s schedule to accommodate the absentee. In case the meeting sticks the absentee may send the representative from the department to carry it along.  

What is not tolerated is a SMS or call notifying the absence just before or after the start of the meeting. Logic being, if a person can’t attend then in this case he should notify the team the moment he knows this by raising a red flag or orange flag at the right time.

• Person taking MOM.

Like every meeting has a place and time defined, what also should be defined is the person who is taking the MOM during the meeting. Effective meeting conclude only after agreeing on the MOM between all stakeholders.

 

 

During the Meeting

• Hygiene Check

A meeting should not start until

• • All attendees are present
  • The pre-meeting check list and topics are met with a clear definition on who is driving the meeting, who is preparing the MOM etc.
  • All participants are clear on the agenda and desired outcome which is to be reiterated by the chair before the start
  • Mobile phones are silent or switched off
  • Any old MOM if any is reviewed
  • Safety Breif

 

• Focus

During the meeting the team has to stay focused on the agenda, if any members feels that the guidelines are not followed then in this case can raise the red flag refereeing to this document and ask for corrective actions.

• Time Check

The chair of the meeting should keep a check on time and notify the attendees if things need to be fastened.

• Break

For meeting more than 60minutes, a 5minute bio-break can be given as per the discretion of the chair.

 

• MOM

The person making the MOM should be taking a clear, unambiguous MOM with a DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) for each activity. Action Items should be with clear owner, deliverable, action item represented by a ‘verb’ and a due date.

 

• Parking Lot

To capture any important or urgent point or idea and also to keep the discussion within the agreed boundary, please use a parking lot. If time permits discuss in the parked topics in end of the meeting or just mention in the MOM as parked issue and a designated DRI who will conclude this point.

 

 

End of the Meeting

• Follow-up/Extension of Current Meeting

If the participants fail to finish the meeting in the designated time, then a new meeting date should be decided along with the other definitions in the pre-meeting check list. If the participants have achieved the addenda then in this case a follow-up meeting if required, should be planned.

• MOM

The MOM created which is validated during the meeting should be circulated to all stakeholders.

 

• Resources check

The resources used for the meeting should be checked and kept in its proper conditions. The team should make sure to switch off the air conditioners, lights, fans and additionally should keep the tea/coffee cups or any food leftovers outside the conference rooms or call for a pick up if the staff is available.

 

 

Other things to ‘know’ or ‘beware of’ to make the meeting more effective.

• Beware of people who ‘Hijack’ the meeting. Every team has a personality who throws a non-relevant point which may be not related to meeting and takes the attendees in a tangential direction during the meeting. The Chair of the meeting should identify and re-focus the team in cases of meeting hijacks and thus giving critique to the hijacker.
• Beware of people who do not give a pointed reply to questions and create a ‘black hole situation’ sucking everyone’s focus, energy, and time. Such situations are also caused when people reply to questions with answers that are not MECE (Mutually Exclusive and Completely Exhaustive). Any pointed reply has to be MECE! MECE can be simply understood as No Overlaps and No Gaps also.
• Beware of non-agenda points enter the meeting specially which are important or urgent to the company. Meeting which start with a very important or urgent point not on the agenda kills the start. Remember, ‘Well begun is half done’.
• Beware of people who are not prepared for the meeting and throw a non relevant point just to show they are involved, interested or a cover-up to their non-preparedness. Critique them.
• Beware of people who notify their absence on the morning or 15-30 mins before the meeting. Such people also forget to inform and may create a fake urgency. This is also a sign that they have not prepared for the meeting.
• Beware of technical problems, which is code name for no preparation done before the meeting
• Meetings inside meeting: Where there are multiple meeting going between people inside the planned meeting.
• Beware of people who hear but not listen. Or people who like cutting other while talking, and not let anyone speak in the meeting. Also people who don’t speak at all which shows non-involvement!!
• At times, teams can plan to have an unplanned or informal meeting which is without agenda (here the agenda is to have a informal discussion), fair enough, but this is exception more than a rule.
• If there is nothing to put on the agenda, the organizer should ask him/herself whether there really needs to be a meeting.
• Arriving late shows a lack of consideration for all those who were on time.
• A general rule to decide on a meeting is try to close the point over mail, if you require more than 2 mails then pick up the phone, if you require more than 2 phones then plan to meet. We need to value everybody’s time hence we have to try to conclude points over mail and phone and call meetings only if it absolutely necessary to fulfil the agenda.

• Types of Meeting

Types of Meeting	Pre-Read	MOM	Attendance	Follow-up
Review Meeting	+++++	++++	++++++	+++++
Discussion	+++	++	++++	+++
Information Sharing	++	+++	++	+
Mass Meeting	+	++	++	+
Team Meetings	+++	+++	++++	++++
Project / Program Meeting	++++	++++	+++++	+++++

 

• RASCI chart: Effective team who execute things in a planned manner know whom to involve where and how. The RASCI chart helps them manage this.

RASCI stands for: Responsible, Accountable, Supported, Consulted, Informed.