Whether you’re a total beginner or a meeting pro, below are 50 simple tips for improving your meetings, both in-person and remote:
- Answer the question ‘Why am I organising this meeting’ before scheduling it.*
- Ask yourself if you can skip the meeting and sort it out over email/chat instead.
- Don’t invite more than 6 people – see Miller’s law.*
- Add an agenda in the invite with items to discuss, listed as bullet points.*
- Order the agenda items by importance – most important one first.
- Put a time limit on each agenda item.
- If it’s a follow-up meeting, add to the invite the key decisions/actions from the last meeting.*
- In your invite, add relevant information for participants to read, ahead of the meeting.
- Make it clear what information is required or optional to read.
- If relevant, ask participants to write their individual update and share it before the meeting.
- Don’t schedule meetings for Monday morning — people are too busy!
- Don’t schedule meetings for Friday after 4pm — it’s almost the weekend!
- Try not to schedule meetings for the middle of the morning or the afternoon — it’s more disruptive.
- Invite decision makers if you need decisions made in the meeting.*
- Don’t invite people who have nothing to contribute or are not needed to achieve the desired outcome.
- If you still do, mention in the agenda who’s required and who’s optional.*
- List in the agenda who is invited and their respective job titles.*
- If it’s not obvious, mention in the agenda why X person is invited.
- Don’t book a 10-person room for a 4-person meeting.*
- Schedule 25 minutes meetings (vs 30 minutes) and 50 minutes meetings (vs 1 hour) — see Parkinson’s law.*
- Gather questions and potential agenda items from participants ahead of the meeting.
- If you’re planning to schedule several meetings a week, create them all together.
- If you’re not in the office and can do the meeting remotely, do so.
- For important ones only, send a meeting update earlier in the day to remind participants.*
- Hit the bathroom before the meeting starts.
- Get the logistics of the meeting ready 5min earlier, remote or face to face.
- If you need your laptop, make sure it’s charged enough ahead of the meeting.
- Start the meeting on time, late-comers will know better next time.
- If the meeting lasts less than 20 minutes, do it standing up.
- If the meeting is longer than 1 hour, do a 5 minute break every 45 minutes.
- Back-to-back meetings should be spaced out by at least 5 minutes.
- At the start of it, ask one participant to share something interesting that happened to them recently.
- If participants don’t know each other much, ask each one to introduce themselves in 30 seconds.
- In less than 1 minute, explain why you’re having this meeting.*
- Assign someone to take notes during the meeting.*
- If not the meeting organiser, assign someone to facilitate the meeting and track the time.*
- After 15 minutes, give the opportunity to speak to participants who haven’t yet.*
- Show good meeting etiquette: be on time, don’t check your phone, listen first & talk second.
- Ban phones and/or laptops unless there is a clear reason for it.
- If you share an opinion or an idea, use the PREP framework.
- Stick to the agenda but keep notes of anything else discussed to address at the end.*
- Favor healthy conflict over unhealthy peace.
- Let participants leave the meeting if their input is not needed anymore.*
- At the end of the meeting, list aloud the agreed key decisions and next steps.*
- Finish the meeting on time, even if you still have things to discuss.*
- Ask for feedback at the end of the meeting.*
- Share the notes with key decisions/actions listed on top, to all participants.*
- Store the notes in the relevant repository, not just in emails which can get buried.*
- Add any task/action from the meeting the you are responsible for, to your To-Do list.*
- Don’t be a robot, stay human and enjoy the meeting!
*Meetric can help – learn how Meetric can make your meetings more productive and engaging.
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