If a meeting is supposed to be a place where information is shared and decisions made, how can so many of these feel utterly useless? Running effective meetings is a skill which is often overlooked, and yet it's critically important.
As a voluteer leader of volunteer leaders, one of the key things required of you and your team is time. With this in mind, it's important to make the best possible use of meeting time.
What makes an unproductive meeting? There are so many things! Lack of organization, overly verbose speakers, late attendees...the common factor in all of these is a lack of planning.
Planning is the most important thing you can do in conducting a productive meeting. As you plan, you'll look at a few critical factors:
- Determine the purpose of the meeting (Hint: if you don't know, you probably don't need a meeting.) Determining the purpose gives you answers to the other questions.
- Prepare an agenda, at least a draft one. This will help you clarify what you want to talk about, who needs to present, and who needs to attend. Consider what topics need to be discussed here, and which ones could be an email.
- Notify those who need to be at the meeting, AND ensure they know why they need to be there (Hint: "they're part of the committee" isn't a good reason.) People who should be at the meeting include those who need to present information or answer questions, and those who need to receive or learn the information. Some also might be needed to support the meeting's effective conduct, such as a Parliamentarian or Zoom Manager.
- Notify the presenters and ensure they are prepared to present. This includes familiarity with the topic, ability to use slides or other technology if needed, and an understanding of the allocated time for presentation.
- Ensure the meeting space is prepared. This might include physical setup of tables, chairs and other equipment, scheduling of a Zoom meeting, or other preparation. This shouldn't be something you think about immediately before the meeting.
- Make sure the chair is prepared for the meeting. This might include a verbal walkthrough of each meeting item with the Parliamentarian, or important meeting participants.
- Plan for the background. Having someone on hand taking notes is important - don't expect to rely on a recording of the meeting and then find out that the recording failed. If you're running an online or hybrid meeting, ensure someone is handling the technology so that online attendees can effectively participate.
- Be conscious of time. This is one of the most common frustrations for meeting attendees - an allocated hour turns into three. Especially in Toastmasters where we learn to speak to a given time, there's little excuse for presenters going over, or a chair speaking at length between presentations. If this is an important part of your meeting, schedule it into the intended time and set an example by keeping to what's allocated.
When you put thought into your meeting's plan, you'll find that conducting it productively becomes natural because you've planned for that productivity and efficiency. While you're thinking about this, why not set out a plan for known meetings this year with a draft agenda and some key topics?