How to Conduct Effective Meetings
Before the Meeting
- Prepare adequately
- Create an agenda and send it to all participants
During the Meeting
- Focus on outcomes. Be clear about your intentions
- Write down the desired outcome for each agenda item
- Ask people to confirm understanding to ensure everyone is on the same page
- Review immediately after the meeting to identify improvement opportunities
- Make meetings meaningful
- Remember that meetings are a medium for managerial activities
How to Conduct Specific Meetings
Tech Analysis
- Develop opposing views, demand perfection, and avoid conflict
- Ensure participants have similar technical competency
1-to-1
Staff Meetings
Workshops
- Share first, then discuss (allow everyone to share their thoughts briefly on a topic/question before opening it up for wider discussion)
- Follow reverse hierarchy order (the most junior or least expert people share their thoughts first, then work your way up to the most senior/expert)
- No laptops—be present
- Attack the problem, not the person
- Close decisions by identifying and recording actions, outcomes, and agreements
- Focus on interests, not positions (identify and agree on needs before trying to solve a problem, so you’re not arguing over philosophical differences)
There are many more techniques you can find online, but the most important thing is to get your team’s buy-in to the ground rules. They should be able to add their own rules and veto ones that aren’t valuable for them. This is what you should do right up front as a team.