7 Tips for Holding an Effective Team Meeting

Not all people value team meetings to the same extent.

Some use meetings or team meeting activities to communicate better and clarify misunderstandings. Others might see them simply as ways of updating the team or client on the project status.

The latter, though, don’t really focus on the bottom line: getting things done effectively.

Now the only big issue is that not all project managers and teams have the ability to make the most out of a team meeting.

Or rather, they don’t know how to organize one that’s truly rewarding…

So what do they do?

They stick to the routine of daily or weekly stand-up meetings and those all-too-common meetings about other future meetings.

But remember this:

Team meetings should be all about getting things done within the project deadline, budget, and quality standards.

This means no slack-offs like asking about your colleague’s next trip, no late starts, no “crickets” after someone has shared an opinion, no leaders taking over the entire discussion, and no other time stealers.

It’s not just your productivity that’s affected, though.

Companies waste a whopping $37 billion each year on no-purpose team meetings alone. That’s just for the US, by the way. And the cost of meetings is not just monetary. Unproductive meetings can reduce work satisfaction rates and determine more people to quit their jobs. Seriously. Just check out this study on the effect of participation on meetings and employee engagement.

If you’re already caught up in this maze, or maybe you’re just looking to make your meetings even more efficient, check out these actionable tips for holding effective team meetings:

Define all meetings beforehand

To prove the role of meetings in your company, define when you’re supposed to hold them, for how long, and what urgent matters need to be solved.

You can state that a meeting should be called only if it has a purpose.

This ensures you’ll no longer bring your team together just because it’s time for that daily meeting you’ve planned in your schedule, even if you don’t really have anything to discuss.

Or maybe you want to eliminate regular stand-up team meetings and stick to debating issues that need immediate feedback.

Just replace the “What I did yesterday” and “What I’ll do today” sections of your Scrum meetings with a communication channel like Slack. Then, have a meeting to discuss how project issues can be fixed.

That’s it. A daily team meeting that’s reduced to half its usual time.

Keep everybody active in the discussions

Many issues go unresolved simply because they’re not discussed. How else are you going to find a problem if not by letting your team members bring them up?

To keep everyone engaged, spread your questions evenly and get the entire team to answer them. This guarantees that all employees get to say something at least a few times. Change the questions and their timing for more engagement.

Knowing that they can be addressed a question at any time makes employees more likely to actively listen and take part in the team meeting.

Encourage people to ask questions and have their voices heard. Having every member contribute to the meeting will also make them feel more valuable and increase their accountability.

Don’t let one person take over the entire time of team meetings

Nobody wants to sit through a team meeting where there’s only one person speaking. Mainly because you’re going to be half asleep through them.

While the need for a facilitator is crucial to keep meetings on-topic, this person should never take over the entire discussion.

If people are left at the end with dozens of unanswered questions and unclear duties, you’re doing it wrong.

Instead, as a meeting organizer, your main role is to guide everyone through the discussions so they can each bring valuable feedback and solutions to a problem.

Set one clear objective for each team meeting

People are more likely to attend a meeting if they know it’ll be a productive one. To ensure this, set a single clear objective or reason for holding it.

Your meeting’s purpose can be to help plan next week’s tasks, a future newsletter, a new website design, get your developers’ feedback to fix an imminent bug, or another actionable goal.

To keep everything organized, create a team meeting agenda. This document contains all discussion points ordered after their appearance and is sent before the meeting so people will have enough time to prepare for it.

You can also ask your team to think about possible topics and ideas they will later discuss in the meeting so no time is wasted on brainstorming.

Pick the right people

The problem is that employees can’t overlook a team meeting reminder. They get the message for the next meeting. They attend it. And often wait for it to end.

Why?

Because not all meetings are meant for your whole team. Your marketing department might have nothing to do with the urgent meeting you called to fix a browser rendering issue.

Similarly, having too many people in a team meeting can be a concern if you’re a project manager looking to get quick, actionable feedback. Holding a conversation with more than 6-8 people is more difficult and usually proves the organizer didn’t choose the right team members for the meeting.

Reduce the number of daily team meetings

If you’re barely getting a few hours for work because you’re called to the next meeting, then it’s about time you lowered their number. Especially if you had to adapt to a hybrid or remote work policy. There are better ways to keep the communication line open with your team—read this article on how to work remotely from home for tips and advice.

You might already be used to having a team meeting every 3-4 hours, though. So it could be more difficult to stick to the new schedule. Start by putting down everything you wanted to discuss and hold a single meeting at the end of the day. This way, employees won’t have to interrupt their work several times.

Follow up on the meetings

No meeting is successful until your decision is put into practice.

As a project manager, you’ll also need to draw a conclusion on each argument, recap the key discussion points, and direct future activities to apply the meeting’s results.

Remind your team members of their duties, create tasks, and ensure they are being completed per what you’ve discussed in the meeting.

Ending a discussion with no documentation to follow is a huge mistake that can put a meeting to waste. Yet, fixing this problem can be just as easy as sending your team an email memo with all discussed points, future responsibilities, priorities, and deadlines.

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Now that you know what it takes to keep your team meetings organized and efficient, what are you going to do next?

Go through the tips above, see what you’re doing right and wrong, and fine-tune them to get things done during your meetings instead of just waiting for time to pass.

First published on December 3, 2018.