8 Ways to Avoid Unproductive Meetings

(Preparao de Reunio Produtiva)

Meetings can be quite productive, but most organizers simply dont take the steps to
guarantee that a meeting will be useful. Here are 8 things you can try to help make your
meetings more productive
! Have a clear agenda
"hat do you want to cover during the meeting and why are you holding it# $o you
want to go over new ideas, or perhaps review some old ones# %repare a clear agenda of
things that you want to discuss during the meeting and hand it out in advance.
$ont hold meetings &ust because your department always has biweekly meetings'
only hold meetings because you need to and because you have a clear plan of what
needs to be said and discussed.
! Make sure that only attendees are people who need to be present
$ont hinder the rest of your organization by dragging everybody into a meeting if
only four or five people actually need to be there. (f people other than the attendees
need to be informed about what was discussed at the meeting then take notes and email
it to them afterwards.
! )stablish ob&ectives for the meeting
)stablish clear ob&ectives for what you want to get out of the meeting * the agenda
covers what+s going to be discussed during the meeting but your ob&ectives cover what
the discussion is going to accomplish. $iscussion is great, but its not productive if it
does not have a goal.
Heres an e,ample of a good goal for a production meeting for a multi-author blog
were meeting today to determine the schedule for all blog posts over the ne,t si,
months. (t clearly states what the discussion should work towards and makes the
e,pectations for the meeting clear.
! Have the attendees prepare in advance .if necessary/
(f your meeting requires its attendees to present information and plans then you
should require them to prepare materials in advance like handouts, %ower%oint
presentations, and outlines.
$o you really want to sit through another meeting where you watch your attendees
scrawl unintelligible impromptu graphs on the whiteboard instead of giving you the
information in a neatly summarized handout beforehand# 0o# 1hen tell your attendees
to prepare in advance.
! 2eep it short
)verybody has something to say * unfortunately there isnt enough time in the day
to listen to all of it. 1he law of diminishing returns applies to meetings too * the longer
a meeting runs past a certain threshold, the less productive each additional minute
becomes.
1here are a number of things you can try to keep your meeting brief .time bo,ing,
limited speaking time, etc3/ but the most important thing is to do something to keep it
short. (t doesnt matter what it is, as long as the attendees and organizers of the meeting
make a conscious effort to keep things brief.
! 4ecord key points and decisions
(ts crucial that key points, ideas, information, and action items are recorded during
a meeting * attendees and other people influenced by whats discussed during the
meeting need to be able to go back and review what was discussed and more
importantly, what was decided during the meeting.
Most people record meetings using hand-written outlines, which they often compile
into typed notes' others sometimes record the audio of the meeting and use that to
produce a written outline after the meeting has concluded. 5gain, it doesnt matter what
system you use as long as someone records what was discussed and decided during the
meeting and distributes those notes to all of the other attendees and interested parties.
! 6reate action items and assign them
1he most important part about making a meeting productive is to make the attendees
accountable for implementing the decisions rendered during the meeting. 1he best way
to do this is to create 7action items,7 actionable tasks that are assigned to some or all of
the attendees.
8bviously action items must be recorded and distributed along with any notes from
the meeting' it+s important that you or one of the other attendees record to whom each
action item has been assigned and when each action item is due. 1his kind of public
assignment helps hold the attendees accountable for implementing the decisions
rendered during a meeting.
! 4eport progress and follow-up
9astly, you want actively investigate the progress of the meeting+s action items and
to inform the other attendees of the progress of the action items that all of you agreed
upon.
%ost-meeting communication is simply another tool to help keep your meeting
attendees accountable for implementing the decisions made during the meeting and it
also helps eliminate future, unnecessary 7progress meetings.7