One of the top three time wasters in the business world is meetings.
As a project manager, you know you need them. You need to communicate with your team, stakeholders, clients, management and other stakeholders around all aspects of your project.
But you probably recognise some of these outcomes in your own team meetings:
Meetings commonly remain inconclusive
- Meetings seldom result in actionable work that can be performed and tracked
- Team members feel that time is being wasted
The fact is, proper planning is critical to assure well-organised and well-conducted meetings that produce valuable results.
Here are 4 steps to help you waste less time in your meetings. You can also download this handy meeting planning tool
1. Pre-planning
Make sure you have planned your meeting out properly. Outline the objectives and purpose of the meeting and make sure that all of your stakeholders are informed. Ensure you have confirmed the participants, your location as well as the date.
2. Preparations
The preparation step actions all of the planning outlined in step one. Book the location, prepare your draft agenda, arrange the equipment you might need.
3. Prior to the Meeting
This step exists to ensure everything is checked before the meeting avoiding time-wasting delays. Make sure that all of your preparations have taken place and that nothing has been forgotten.
4. After the meeting
You’ve executed a successful meeting. Now it’s time to clean up and make sure that the objectives of your meeting became actionable. Distribute the minutes of the meeting and begin tracking the tasks.
Ready to get started with more successful meetings?
You can download Best Practical’s simple meeting planning tool for a handy meeting planning checklist.