![]() The result should be a set of meetings tailored to the mandate of your team and differentiated in frequency and duration to suit the content. Those items naturally move to the overflow spot when needed.īreaking out of the one-size-fits-all approach is the secret of effective meetings. Having a receptacle for the overflow prevents cramming at the end of meetings and also reduces the likelihood that people’s time will be wasted on issues requiring only a small subset of the team. If I could choose one meeting effectiveness tip that would make almost all teams more efficient it would be to schedule a regular overflow spot on the calendar. ![]() The manufacturing team could start the morning with a 30-minute huddle and reserve a half-day for more substantive bi-weekly meetings.įifth, plan for overflow. Strategic meetings need more time because the topics require space for people to explore and dissent. A regular operational meeting needs to be crisp and therefore as short as possible. Each type of meeting needs a very different feel. In a manufacturing operation, that operations meeting might even be a daily huddle, whereas the big projects could be discussed bi-weekly or monthly.įourth, set the length of the different meetings. Less urgent topics and can be discussed less frequently. The short time horizon topics (e.g., revising projections for the coming month) need to happen frequently. Third, determine the frequency with which you need to discuss each category. The manufacturing team could split operational discussions about issues on a line or scrap rate concerns from discussions about progress on the introduction of a new line. Make things easier by splitting discussions into categories. Meetings become ineffective when they combine different types of discussions, because we aren’t good at changing the pace or tenor of a conversation once it starts. Second, parse the items into different categories so meetings can be tailored to the content. The manufacturing leadership team would emphasize issues that cut across the plant and parse out topics that can be addressed by individuals or subgroups of the team. Instead, focus on the items where the team’s input will change the trajectory of the work. Exclude topics where one person has clear accountability and can proceed without input. I’ll use the example of a leadership team of a manufacturing plant to demonstrate the process.įirst, define the work of the team. There are a few simple steps that will help you build a better meeting structure. A one-size-fits-all team meeting rarely works. Inevitably, teams fail to link the structure (i.e., content, frequency, and duration) of their meetings with the job that needs to be accomplished in those meetings. Yet they had only allocated 30 minutes per week to the task! My favorite example was a Corporate Affairs team that had an ambitious agenda to work collaboratively to transform the perception of the organization among members of the public, the regulator, and three levels of government. I am frequently flummoxed by the complete misalignment between a team’s mandate and the agenda for their meetings. ![]()
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