How do you conduct effective and efficient team meetings and project reviews?

As a Senior Manager in Business Intelligence, I can't stress enough the importance of a clear purpose and agenda for team meetings. It's like having a game plan in sports - you wouldn't step onto the field without one! By setting the agenda, you're essentially laying out the playbook for your team, ensuring everyone knows their role and how to execute it effectively. And remember, a little humor goes a long way in keeping the team engaged and motivated. So, let's tackle those meetings with the same enthusiasm we bring to our innovative projects! ????

Conduct effective and efficient team meetings and project reviews by setting a clear agenda with defined objectives, keeping discussions focused, and managing time effectively. Encourage active participation, track action items, and follow up on progress. Use collaborative tools for tracking and documenting outcomes, and solicit feedback to continuously improve the meeting process.

Doing this also allows you to have the right participants, if the organisation or team has enabled and empowered team members to say whether this meeting is appropriate for them to attend. In some organisations, the number of meetings can become overwhelming and take away staff from other work that also needs to be done. Providing an agenda and purpose ensures that it benefits everyone invited and participating.

In my experience, the effective and efficient team meetings will be done through clear agenda, meeting participants and timing of the meeting. Agenda will help to identify the purpose of the meeting, detail of points to be discussed and challenges need to be faced. Meeting participants is very crucial for effective and efficient team meetings.The team members who are relevant to attend this meeting. To avoid unwanted participants that helps to make a meeting will more effective. Meeting timing is very important. A meeting will be clear and simple communication to understand easily by others. Ground rules will follow and team members engagement will lead to effective and efficient meeting.

Its about transparency and collaboration. Technology plays a huge role, solutions like Trello are fantastic for keeping everyone on the same page. It's not just about the tools, it’s about having the right processes in place. You need clear templates for how meetings are conducted and how information is gathered. Once you’ve created that blueprint, roll it out company-wide and ensure everyone follows it diligently. This way, everyone feels informed and involved, making meetings smoother and project reviews more productive. It’s all about making the workflow visible and easy to track for everyone.

There is no one size fits all. Consistency is key. As is making sure people know what to expect in advance. Make it a habit to ask your team what is working and what isn’t. They will tell you!

And agree on time limits. Some people tend to speak too much and deviate from the topic heavily! While sometimes it might be valuable, still, for the efficiency sake, there must be moderation. To make sure that no one is offended by being “cut off”, this of course, needs to be agreed upon in advance. Communicate about how you are going to communicate, and do stick to these agreements!

I agree with Maria here! Time limits are so important, and a meeting chair will hopefully be aware and mentally track when a topic is worth moving on from. Maybe it needs some more thought or work before discussing it, maybe it should be a separate discussion altogether, maybe it requires other stakeholders there, etc. Whatever it is, a good meeting chair or host will sense that it requires more than what this meeting can provide.

One of my favorites is to tackle the important “entire group” stuff first and leave the odds and ends to the end. Then be intentional to recognize when you crossover, pause, and give those that don’t need to be there for the rest the option to reclaim their time.

Assign a predictable pattern that you will call on people to give feedback; such as starting with the person on your left and going around clockwise or going down the list of attendees alphabetically. Make sure everyone has the option to pass if they don't have anything to add. If someone wants to jump in cause they have something they're excited to say, let them. Once voluntary responses are aired, return to where you left off with your pattern. If people are still slow to jump in during a group meeting, there's a chance you don't have the trust of your group. Work on your active listening skills and review how often you have kept your promises and fully filled your responsibilities recently.

Meeting follow-up with precise action points, responsible persons assigned for each action point and deadlines is what differentiates a simple get-together from an efficient meeting.

Something else to add here to consider setting yourself up for better team meetings and project reviews: start looking forward. Get all your major dates listed out somewhere you can see them, so you can keep those prioritised and you know when certain work can actually take a backseat (in case of emergencies). Otherwise you might be working away from goals you actually need to accomplish if you forget certain projects and deadlines in the midst of putting out other fires.