To help teams have more effective meetings we’re going to introduce a really simple template that will help make sure the meetings we have:

• Always have an objective and purpose
• Help our teams come prepared and know what to expect
• Make sure we have an easy way of sharing outputs

We’ve all been there haven’t we? Those meetings that might start late, or have a blank invitation, an hour never quite seems to be long enough to cover everything, or seems to invite everyone for the sake of it. It doesn’t have to be this way. If we follow some really simple principles we can overcome all of these and more.

It might sound too good to be true, but its easy with a few simple steps. Before I start though, I highly recommend a 6 minute Ted Talk from an amazing speaker called David Grady. The power of “NOMAS” – your time is so important, you don’t always have to click accept every time, and maybe just maybe we can help each other be a bit better. Enjoy the video its well worth a watch.

So lets go right to the beginning, what are those things we know all meetings should have, even before we send out an invite…. An objective. Really simple, but adding that to the invite means:

•  We know who needs to attend
•  What attendees might need to prepare for

To help this, and make sure meetings run for the correct amount of time, that’s right add an agenda to the invite too:

• What are you going to be covering?
• How long will things need to take?

So that’s the invite itself, but what about in the meeting itself? What simple things can we do to make sure we stick to time and capture actions, and input from the team?

At the very beginning of the meeting it can be really useful to also have a slot called ‘expectations’ a quick chance to ask attendees if there’s anything they want to ask or cover as we go through, and importantly a chance to divert anything that might not relate to the meeting too (and encourage a follow up)

At the end of the meeting, there’s also a chance to make sure we’re capturing any concerns anyone might have about any actions, systems, or contacts they need, so capturing that under Bs&Cs (benefits and concerns) at the end can be a really simple way to do this. Quickly just confirming any positives about the sessions but then making a point of capturing any of those concerns anyone might have.

It really helps if you frame a concern as a “I wish I knew..” type statement, it makes it a lot easier to turn into an action we can then help with.

And of course at the end making sure any next steps are captured live in the meeting. Try as much as possible to only assign actions to people at the meeting, as well as agreeing any timescales in the meeting too, so teams are prepared before the meetings finishes. If a meeting is really important or is going to take a long time you can also have a support role in there too a ‘facilitator’, there to make sure the meeting runs to time, captures actions, and makes sure all the agenda items are covered. Freeing the meeting owner to focus on getting through the important content.

As attendees we do have a part to play too though, did we come prepared? Did we have a quick read of the invite. Its ok to reply to the invite asking for a bit more information.

By Alex Russell-Rutherford

Alex Russell-Rutherford is a Senior Business Consultant Skewb. To speak with him about this topic in more detail, you can connect with him on LinkedIn.