MEETING EFFECTIVENESS

MAINTAINING A BALANCED DIET OF MEETINGS

Team leaders must schedule the right amount of meetings in order to move their teams forward without weighing them down. Meetings are meant to keep a team healthy and growing, to keep people on track with company goals, and to help the team increase efficiencies and effectiveness.

There are a few rules managers must consider when planning meetings:

*Team leaders must decide what type of meeting must take place: informational, problem-solving, planning, or retreats/team building.

*Team leaders should make sure that there is a clearly stated purpose for the meeting, as well as defined goals.

*There should be a written agenda, and everyone who needs to present should know about it ahead of time.

*If status meetings are common in an organization, they should be minimized.

*Leaders should encourage team members to use tools, such as email, wikis, and even old-fashioned bulletin boards, to communicate about the status of a project as much as possible.

*When a decision-making meeting is scheduled, the team leader should distribute information ahead of time to speed up the process. It should be made clear to participants that being prepared is mandatory.

To determine the value of their meetings, team leaders should regularly collect feedback from team members. After three to twelve months of data collection, they should meet with the team and determine the consensus on the value, purpose, frequency, and length of meetings. They can then adjust the schedules as necessary.