How to Organize More Effective, Cost-Efficient and Productive Meetings

Conducting a meeting can be a monumental task . . . whether it's just a few staff members gathering to discuss a departmental problem, a weekly team meeting, a "brainstorming" session or a divisional sales conference. Here are some tried and true techniques you can put into action before holding your next meeting:

Only Hold Meetings When Needed

"To meet or not to meet ... that is the question".

Many executives firmly believe there is too much time spent "meeting" and not enough time "executing". One of the things that needs to be considered is whether or not a meeting is really necessary.

Before scheduling a meeting ask yourself: "Does this really require a face-to-face sit down meeting with a group of people?". " Is it worth tying up people and resources when there may be less time consuming and more productive alternatives?".

After you think about it, very often, you'll experience some doubt as to whether a meeting is needed or not. It will occur to you that there might be a simpler, less time consuming solution.

One of the key factors in answering these questions is determining exactly how much having a meeting is going to cost. This is especially true for small businesses where every dollar is important.

Calculate The True Cost Of A Meeting

Every meeting has a price tag attached in cold hard dollars. Your simple weekly "team meeting" may actually be costing you over $40,000 a year money that could be used to hire an additional employee ... buy 12 new computers ... or run an advertising campaign that delivers 200 new customers.

In addition, the time spent sitting around talking could be used to generate more income from current clients too!

Here's a simple way to calculate the cost of a meeting, the way a large advertising agency would do.

For example, if the average hourly rate (including 30% for benefits) of 10 people attending the meeting is $40, the annual cost for a weekly 2 hour meeting is approximately $41,600 ( $40 per hr. x 10 people x 2 hrs x 52 weeks). Unless this expense is 100% billable to a client, it's coming out of the company's pocket and off the bottom line

In this case, one question you need to ask are: "Do we really need to meet for 2 hours or could we accomplish things in 1 hour?". Meeting for a maximum of 1 hour per week would cut your costs in half and save $20,800.

Holding this same team meeting for an hour every 2 weeks would cut your annual cost from $41,600 to $10,400 ... a savings of $31,200.

Explore Other Options

Meetings aren't the only alternative. Consider other options that may be just as effective but far less costly and time consuming. These include group emails, instant messaging, conference calls, web or video conferences, and other alternatives. These "electronic" meeting options can help you reduce the number of people and the time involved saving money and increasing productivity and profits .

Schedule Meetings As Far In Advance As Possible

Once you've decided to schedule a meeting, try to schedule it as far in advance of the meeting date as possible. This gets it on the attendees' schedules earlier and gives them more time to prepare so they can contribute to a more productive meeting.

Ask For RSVPs

Always request an RSVP when you send out a meeting invitation. Like with any event, the sooner who know who's attending, the better you can plan and the more successful the meeting will be. This also allows you to reschedule if key participants can't attend.

Develop A Tight Meeting Agenda

Every meeting needs a tight agenda to run smoothly, productively and on-schedule. Don't try to accomplish too much in a single meeting. Too many meetings agendas are "over-ambitious", which only results in attendee "overload" and a decline in the creativity and productivity.

Create a "lean and mean" agenda. Assigning a target time frame for each item on the agenda greatly helps you manage the meeting and communications flow.

Send Out Meeting Agenda In Advance

Sending out a meeting agenda and any relevant documents in advance gives participants time to organize and prepare. An advanced written agenda and attachments also provide a means to hold attendees responsible for being prepared.

Only Invite Those People Needed

Not everybody in the department or every manager needs to be invited to every meeting. Keep meetings as small as possible by inviting only people who need to be there, and who will make the most valuable contributions. This helps maintain the focus on the important topics, and facilitate the flow of communication, so meetings run more smoothly, productively and on-time.

Instead of inviting non essential participants, ask them for ideas via email in advance and send email summaries after the meeting. This has proven to be a far more productive, effective and less costly alternative.

Schedule at Meetings At Productive Times

Late in the afternoon, or after work hour meetings to be the least productive. It's only natural for participants to want to get out and home on time, or finish other work so they can leave at a reasonable hour.

Unless you're offering lunch or making the meeting a "brown bag lunch and learn" session, avoid scheduling meetings during lunch. Meetings that are held between 9 am and noon and 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. tend to be more productive because participants can keep focused on the task at hand instead of being concerned about getting to lunch or going home for the day.

Meet Where There's A Clock on The Wall

Having a wall clock in the meeting room reminds people of the time and helps you manage the meeting better. It also helps reduce the frequency of people checking their wrist watches or looking at their cell phones.

Set Basic Expectations

It is important for anyone who regularly conducts meetings sets four basic expectations participants know automatically will be required at your meetings:

"Be On Time", "Be Prepared", "Be Positive and Professional" and " Actively Participate".

Start and End Meetings On Time

Nothing is more irritating to hard working staff members than attending meetings that start and end later than scheduled. Starting meetings promptly, adhering to the agenda and carefully managing the time and communications flow create a positive and productive meeting.

Make Introductions If Needed

Very often meeting attendees may not know one another and introductions should be made. This puts the participants at ease and facilitates communication.

Rather than spend time going around the table asking each person to "introduce yourself and tell everyone something about you", circulate a brief bio of each participant in advance, along with a small photo, if available. Name plates and name tags for each meeting participant also help facilitate the introduction process, especially with larger groups. When the meeting begins, the only introduction needed is a simple, "Dennis Stanton, Director of Marketing". This is saves a considerable amount of valuable time.

Establish Meeting Rules

Anyone conducting meeting needs to set meeting rules that attendees are expected to follow. These should include: Turn off cell phones, check your egos at the door, be on time, come prepared, participate but don't dominate the conversation, be positive and professional ... and so on. Attach your rules to the agenda and after a few meetings, people will adopt the rules as routine behavior.

Stick To The Agenda

Staying on track is challenging. Maintaining the focus of participants and preventing then from "going off on tangents" can be simply managed by just adhering to the agenda. Participants really appreciate the fact that you respect their time, schedules and workloads by eliminating digressions that only waste time.

Manage the Communication Process

Effective meeting leaders create and effective communications flow and momentum by adhering to the agenda, preventing "over zealous" participants from monopolizing and dominating the conversation as well as by managing time effectively.

Encourage and Reinforce Feed Back From Non Vocal Individuals

Very often, participants who are not contributing to a meeting may feel intimidated by dominating personality types or by the presence of their superiors. In some instances, they may just be shy individuals, or people who are challenged when it comes to verbal communication. Encourage these attendees to express their ideas and positively reinforce their contribution. A little encouragement and reinforcement goes a long way and produces some amazing results from the least expected sources.

Be Positive ... There Are No Bad Ideas

Especially in "brain storming" or "idea generating" meetings, it is needs to be established from the start that everyone's attitude must be 100% positive and they abide by the premise that "There are no bad ideas". Participants need to understand that creativity-killing phrases like: "They'll never buy that", " It will never work", "We tried that before", "Somebody recommended that last year", "It's too expensive ... you'll never get the money for it" ... "That's a dumb idea" or "What were you smoking this morning?" are not acceptable in the meeting. Negativity accomplishes nothing..

Thank Them For Their Time and Effort

At the conclusion of every meeting, thank all of the participants for their time, thought and effort. It's always a good idea to end each meeting on an up-note by acknowledging that the participants' time was well spent. Simply saying that the meeting was "just what we needed", "productive", "a step in the right direction", "an important first step" accomplishes this.

Send Meeting Re Caps To All Attendees

It's always a good idea to email a brief summery outlining the meeting highlights to all attendees. Not only is it the courteous and professional thing to do, it also assures that everyone knows the next steps and what's expected of them, so there are no misunderstandings.

Send Courtesy Summaries to Other Interested Parties

If there are others in the company who you want to "keep in the loop" about what transpired at the meeting, send them the same re cap you sent attendees.

Take Action In A Timely Manner

Send meeting summaries out as soon as possible after the meeting. If you are responsible for creating action plans, taking any next steps, or acting on ideas discussed in the meeting, do it as quickly as possible.

These simple guidelines will help you more effectively plan and conduct any meeting regardless of its purpose or the the number of attendees. Put them to work now and you'll see the results after your very next meeting.