Harvard Business Review did a study of senior managers and found that over 70% found meetings to be unproductive and over 60% thought that it took time from deep thought. These meetings are a serious blocker to productivity and keep us from accomplishing the things that move the needle! What are we to do then? How do we end the meetings without agendas or the chaos they bring? Well we’ve got a few ideas that might help!
Pre-briefs
Want to end the long drawn out powerpoint slides and stopping at each slide to dig through everything? Try creating a pre-brief that can be sent out to those who are attending the meeting. We recommend including the slides and any main points. Now when the meeting starts you can quickly get to the questions that need to be answered and skip the slides!
Those attending have had a chance to read the information when they have time, think on their questions, and gather any background before hand. Creating a pre-brief also allows you to clearly set the aspects that will be discussed and focus the conversations around those points to prevent tangent conversations.
Grab the sticky notes or note cards
If your team likes to go down tangents or side conversations erupt easily then this could be helpful. If during the meeting a point comes up that only part of the attendees need to discuss, simply put the thought or question onto a sticky note and set it aside. When the meeting ends those can grab the note and discuss later without taking up the time of the others. If each member has a thought or information they need to drop to the issue on the sticky note, have them write it on the notecard and slide it under the sticky note. Then even if they have to leave, the information is available to the others.
The follow up email/post brief
While a meetings without agendas can be difficult to get started and keep on track, theres also the post meeting madness that sometimes follows. Person A might have one piece of information they need to find. While person B has another thought to add, and person C has the update needed from the project. Instead of having each person send their piece to the whole team, have one person be the main point of contact who can create a post-brief or follow up with all the information together in one document. This reduces the never ending email chains!
