Mention a meeting and most folks will roll their eyes. Meetings are often seen as a huge time sink, which distract attendees from ‘real’ work. Yet a meeting can and should be useful, facilitating communication, and collaboration. Working on problem resolution, brainstorming and enabling teams to reach decisions on ways forward.
 There are many ways to run a meeting, but here are a few simple considerations to make sure a meeting is productive

What is the meeting about and, Why are you having this meeting?

Do you even need a meeting? Before even working on the invitation think.. Does the meeting even need to happen? Could we achieve the same results with something as simple as a Slack channel update?

Key to establishing the What and Why is the Invitation. The invite provides the purpose of the meeting. Not only is it important that the invitees understand what the meeting is for, it is also reaffirms your own understanding as to what you hope to achieve from the meeting. Presenting the purpose in writing will help.

To clarify the intent of a meeting the invite should contain:

• A Descriptive Title: ‘meeting’ is not a descriptive title

• An Overview: Just a sentence or two giving context to the meeting, what is going to be discussed, and why.

• An Agenda: A brief, bullet list of actives during the meeting. The Agenda is essentail for staying on topic

• Goals: A list of actions and outcomes expected from the meeting

When are you having the meeting?

In essence, punctuality and time management.

Good timekeeping demonstrates both professionalism and respect for everyone directly and indirectly impacted by the meeting. What does this mean?

Scheduling

• Notice: Give folks sufficient notice of the booking, not everyone has the luxury of staring at their calendar inbox all day.
• Double Booking: Have the courtesy to check you are not double booking someone for the meeting. If there are conflicts, speak with the attendee prior to double booking them.

Punctuality

• Start on time: If you’re running the meeting, start on time. That means being in the room, be that virtual or physical, with any meeting props setup and ready to go.

• Arrive on time: If you’re attending the meeting, arrive at, or just ahead of the scheduled time.

  You’re not imagining it, genuinely, no one likes you when you rock up late and force the first 20 minutes of the meeting to be repeated.

• Finish ‘on time’: The standard tools mean that meeting durations are typically rounded to the nearest 1/2hr, in which case, there’s a good chance that some attendees will have appointments immediately following. As a courtesy to these folks, and others, wrap the meeting up 5 minutes prior to the end of the scheduled block. This allows folks to prepare for their next meeting, to relocate, bathroom, whatever. But it ensures your meeting does not disrupt the goals of others. Conclude each meeting with a written summary and include actions identified during the meeting.

• Wrap up: Prior to the end of the meeting, call a stop to discussions and agree as a group what you’ve achieved, what are the outcomes, actions and owners? What are the next steps? Record these outcomes and share with all the attendees after the meeting. When using a wrap up, it's helpful to inform the group at the start of the meeting that there will be some time allocated for wrapping up before the alloted time completes.

Who should attend?

A meeting with too many folks is a colossal waste of time for most. A meeting with just yourself is equally wasteful (unless it's following a heavy lunch). Get the balance right, two people still makes a valid meeting, as can 10.

So who do you want in the room?

• Facilitator: This person will most likely be the meeting organiser, they will control the agenda, keep the meeting focussed, and ensure the meeting comes to a timely and tidy conclusion. The Facilitator (or Chair) should not be confused for someone who has more say in the discussions. They are equal, they just control the flow/agenda.
• Attendees: Try and keep the attendee list small, the goals of the meeting will help you to identify the attendee list
  • Those with expertise in the area.
  • Those who may be impacted by the direction the outcome takes
  • Let folks know that they can leave. Sometimes it is tricky to get the invitee list correct, so let folks know that they can leave during a meeting if they feel that they are not adding value

Where?

Remote working is here to stay (and that's a good thing) but it adds a few extra variables when trying to coordinate a meeting.

If you have remote attendees, a few things to consider...

• Cameras: Both the remote folks and those in the room should have be visible to one another.
  • Body language - Body language says so much when communicating.
  • Presence - Without a face in the meeting, remote folks can be overlooked. Have them on camera, have them on a big display
  • Visibility encourages focus. It's pretty much guaranteed that the person who responds to a question with "What was that, sorry?", didnt have their camera on and possibly wasn't paying attention
• Collaboration: If there's a collaboarive exercise such as drawing, or using stickies on a white board, then the use of a collaborative tool will be more inclusive. Not only will this enable everyone to participate, but it also records the activity