Advice For Keeping Company Meetings On-Time and On-Track

Have you ever sat through a meeting that went completely off topic resulting in a follow-up meeting to what the original one was supposed to achieve? Or have you left a meeting feeling like you wasted your time and wondered what, if anything, was accomplished? I know I have and I also know how frustrating and time consuming it can be.

A member of The Alternative Board, Ron Mondor from Zantek Information Technology, recently had some advice published in The Alternative Board’s Tips From The Top® Newsletter suggesting that you should properly structure your meetings by:

• Having an agenda


• Setting an objective


• Appointing a note taker and time keeper


• Listing your action items in an action plan


• Assigning a meeting owner who will prepare an agenda and be responsible for communicating to the meeting attendees


• Hooking up a laptop to a projector so that everyone can see the action plan and it can be updated during the meeting

By structuring your meetings this way, you will leave knowing what tasks are assigned to you and what other team members are responsible for. Ron also suggests that the meeting owner should email the action plan out to all attendees at the conclusion of the meeting or post the document where everyone can access it.

Another member of The Alternative Board, Nora Holzwart from NEP, said in the March 2010 issue of Tips From The Top® that her company has adapted a policy to help speakers who get off topic return to the issue at hand. Nora says, “Any member of the team can state a pre-selected word that would seldom be used in a business setting – such as ‘windmill’ or ‘ramble’. The speaker will not mistake it for a polite interruption and will understand that it is a constructive hint to get back on track”.

Nora also stated that not only does her company create an agenda for each meeting, but also schedules time for each topic that will be discussed. “If we approach the assigned time for the topic she will interrupt and ask another team member, What do you think? or state, We are nearing our allocated time limit, what action do you want us to take?,” offers Nora. As a result, NES has improved the focus of their meetings and reduced the amount of time spent in meetings.

To prevent the typical response to a meeting invitation of, “Ugh, another meeting”, think about implementing some of these ideas that will help make your meetings run smoother and accomplish the meeting objective. I think you’ll find that if a meeting results in actionable items that leave team members feeling that the meeting was a good use of their time, then the overall company moral might also be lifted.