Whether you’re hosting a staff meeting or are kicking off a new project with the team working on it, a team meeting can be a great use of your time. However, if your meetings aren’t achieving what you want, it’s time to rethink how you run your team meetings. Here are four simple steps that will help you get more out of your meetings.
1. Start with A Goal
Every meeting has to have a purpose, whether you’re starting up a project or just keeping everyone updated on the projects that your department is working on, and keeping that goal in mind is essential. Staying focused on your goal will help ensure that you get the most out of your meeting. If you don’t have a goal, though, the time you would otherwise have used for a meeting might be better spent on other tasks.
2. Make Sure Everyone Has Been Introduced
The best start to your meeting is ensuring that everyone in the team has been introduced. This is especially important if you’re bringing together a team of employees who don’t work together often or if a new employee is joining you. Introducing everyone isn’t just a get-to-know-you, though—it ensures that everyone knows who to call when they need to follow up on important information.
3. Assign Roles
While a meeting works best when everyone participates, consider assigning roles to keep everything moving smoothly. One person should be leading the conversation, for example, to ensure that you stick to the topics that need to be covered. This also ensures that there’s one person who can wrangle distracted meeting attendees if you start having multiple conversations.
Leading the meeting isn’t the only job, though. If someone isn’t able to make it to the meeting, make sure someone is taking notes for them. If you’ve got a lot to cover, have one person keep track of time and remind everyone when the end time has almost arrived.
4. End When You’ve Said You’ll End
Your day is busy, and so are the days of your meeting attendees! That’s why it’s so important to do your best to end meetings when you’ve said you’ll end them. It’s possible that your meetings might run long, but if you’re constantly running over end times you’re probably trying to cram too much into your meetings.
How do you make the most of your team meetings? Do you have any tips you’d like to share? We’d love to see you join the conversation in the comments below.
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