How can you keep your meetings focused on the most important issues?

💡 To maintain focused meetings, prioritizing purpose and agenda is key. 🎯 Purpose Clearly define your meeting's goal. Ask, "What's our aim?" For instance, instead of "discuss product launch," say "decide on the marketing plan for the launch." 📅 Agenda Provide specifics for each topic: topic, time frame, leader, desired outcome. Share it ahead to prepare attendees. ⏳ Time management Start and end on time. 🗣️ Participation Engage all attendees with open-ended questions to encourage idea sharing. 🔴 Minimize distractions Instruct to silence devices and, if remote, use distraction-reduction tools. 📌 These tips ensure effective meeting purpose and agenda definition, keeping discussions on track.

You can: Prioritize topics, rank the agenda items by importance. Start with the most critical issues to ensure they receive adequate discussion time and set time limits by allocating specific time slots for each agenda item. Stick to these time limits to prevent tangential discussions.

This is sometimes overlooked: before calling a meeting, make sure it’s actually necessary. Always check if a meeting is the most effective way to reach your objective, or if a more efficient alternative would suffice. A good way to decide if the meeting is necessary is to be completely clear about its purpose, aims and outcomes. For example, if the aim of the meeting is to ‘Make a decision on the next stage of Project X”. Does it really need say, 5 people to decide this? It could be that this is for the project manager to decide. In that case let him or her make the decision! On the other hand, if the project manager has hit an issue or needs guidance from other team members as a group, then there’s probably a case for a meeting.

By strict agenda and keeping away from general “how are things” meetings. Also, call for face to face meetings for high important issues not for issues that can be solved by other means of communication.

Meetings are a necessary part of organizational leadership, but they must be managed efficiently to avoid becoming frustrating and unproductive. Setting clear objectives, limiting attendees, managing time, appointing a moderator, using a parking lot for off-topic ideas, summarizing action items, practicing technology etiquette, and conducting post-meeting evaluations are all essential strategies for maintaining focus and productivity in executive meetings.

Too little time is spent on the planning of the meeting than in the meeting. Apart from setting the agenda and the outcome, one of the critical aspects of the plan is to ensure we have the right person in the right seat. During the meeting, as an organizer, if you find out you don't have the right person, the best outcome is to reschedule with the right folks and give back time.

Once the goal of a meeting is defined and the agenda set to achieve that goal, only then is it time to identify attendees. If the meeting is to acquire a decision, then you need to ensure that a) the authorized decision makers are invited, and b) that all of the required groups/units/divisions are represented by a decision maker. An important step that is oft overlooked is securing and confirming attendance--in advance. If not all parties are present, then a decision meeting can't reach its goal. Prior to the meeting, reach out and confirm (and reschedule) before the meeting occurs. For meetings where info is being collected or thoughts discussed, ensure to identify required contributors. Others can receive the output later.

Providing clear time expectations and sticking to an agenda should be requirements for meetings. However, every business is unique and thus may have their own specific meeting rules they prefer to follow for best outcomes. It can be helpful for businesses to outline what they consider to be “meeting best practices” for departments to follow company wide. This framework will help both large and small businesses ensure that ground rules are clear and meetings are being conducted in the same manner across all departments.

It's important to communicate the ground rules for the meeting at the start. This means that you need to allocate time for this in the agenda as it typically takes a few minutes. For example, you might need to introduce the facilitator, their role, and how they are empowered to address the attendees if going off topic or exceeding time limits. You might need to explain what the parking lot is and how you will address these items outside of the meeting. Lastly, once the rules are explained, ask the attendees if they have any questions or concerns. Really ask and give a pause. Then address any concerns before continuing and reviewing the agenda.

I like ideas for meeting ground rules that make the time consumed equal to any economic output related to that meeting. Example "After this meeting we must have decided something that will reduce costs or increase income for our company worth at least as much as we just produced staff costs for the duration of our discussions." It sets a clear focus on company's overall objectives. (Sam Walton wrote something similar about his Wal-Mart management meetings in his book "Made in America")

No matter how well you set the agenda or highlight what needs to be discussed, there might be days when things don't go as planned and somebody might raise questions that are not relevant to the discussion happening at the moment. On those days, take note of that issue so that the person does not feel disrespected and make sure you discuss that when the right time arrives.

In my experience, the parking lot is a necessity for most meetings. However, it can only be effective if introduced at the start of the meeting combined with having a clear agenda that has 'bounds'. When someone introduces a topic that falls outside the scope of the agenda, then using the parking lot is an unbiased approach to keep the meeting on point. Without communicating the parking lot approach from the start and trying to defer an item mid-meeting, you run the risk of not being collaborative or not letting someone speak. This situation, although unintentional, can completely derail the meeting and shutdown attendees who feel their voices will not be heard. Also, ensure parking lot items are addressed at a later time.

A crucial step in summarizing a meeting is the deliverable. All decisions should be clearly documented with the named decision maker. All follow-ups should be noted with actionable tasks assigned to a named person and a feasible due date, along with an accountable person in case of escalation. If some follow-ups need to occur in serial, clearly note the dependencies. Also, proactively communicate that a follow-up status on the action items will be provided on a regular cadence until all are closed. Too often, action items resulting from a meeting are noted and assigned but never managed. Ensure there is an action item 'manager' who is responsible for following up with the owners of each item to acquire status and do so until closure.

The most important topics may be the ones that are least likely to be raised. What if every meeting agenda had a standing item for “what could go wrong?” Or “what are the potential unintended consequences?” Or “how could this backfire?”

1. Prepare the agendas 2. Prepare list of participants and limit it to persons that are linked directly to the issue . People who can have added value 3.A meeting should not exceed 45 mn. The best is 30 to 45 mn 4. Manage the timing for each topic 5. Prepare a MOM after the meeting and assign each action for a person in charge with a specific lead time

Ensure you’re allowing space for constructive observation without retribution. Too often people who have valuable insights are afraid to speak candidly out of fear. Sometimes the best solutions come from those outside the direct area as they have a viewpoint many are removed from. Listening to understand versus respond is a lost art and can take teams further when the going gets tough.

I would also suggest 1. Use of technology specially in case or virtual meetings one can use collaboration tools and VC softwares for better communication. It will ease sharing documents. 2. Summarizing key points : ir will help to maintain takeaways , and decisions. Made during the meeting and keeping the participants at same page.

Meetings... egh, right? I find myself in meetings all the time questioning the purpose of so many resources being allocated with so little contribution. Don't get me wrong, I've been in productive meetings & I try to add value in all scenarios. The meetings that don't make sense are those that solely encompass engratitation or a constant echo of appreciation, versus the managers who object to everything. I believe both attributes are important but there needs to be value-add as well. I challenge the objector to take action to fix the issue, take the RA in the RACI, rather than the C. I challenge the promoter to compliment with action, adding expertise & value. Otherwise, if everyone is informed, why not call it a training?