What are the best practices for keeping meetings productive and efficient?

Agenda is the most important thing which has to clear to all stake holders, this clarity will help them identify, rectify and prioritise the task . Equal participation and value to feedback from Evey one makes meetings more participative and poductive.

Having a well-defined agenda is crucial for any meeting; without clear objectives, the meeting becomes a time-wasting exercise. I've observed individuals scheduling meetings without a clear purpose, often leading to uncertainty about what to discuss, and they tend to rely on others to guide the conversation.

The objective of the meeting is closely integrated with the attendees. It has to have some take aways for the attendees as well without which you will not have engagement of the people. I used to run meetings where people keep completely quiet and one day a person came to me and said " these meetings are not productive because many of us have nothing to take away from these meetings"

Its great to send out a meeting invite where the objective of the meeting is clarified and where others can add to the agenda where appropriate. This is backed up by: - Adding the same information to the invite itself - if a big meeting, send a reminder of the agenda a day before - Start the meeting with the agenda - Finish the meeting defining outcomes and new objectives or actions that are needed to make next steps.

1. Be Specific: Clearly state what you want to achieve in explicit terms. 2. Be Measurable: Define success criteria or key performance indicators to gauge progress. 3. Be Achievable: Ensure the objective is realistic and within reach. 4. Be Relevant: Align the objective with the broader goals and mission of the project or organization. 5. Be Time-Bound: Set a clear deadline or time frame for achieving the objective. 6. Provide Context: Explain why the objective is important and how it contributes to the overall goal. 7. Communicate Clearly: Ensure that all stakeholders understand and align with the defined objective. 8. Review and Adjust: Periodically assess progress towards the objective and make adjustments as needed.

Once the agenda is set, adhere to it and honor the agreed-upon schedule. Appoint a timekeeper to assist in maintaining the allocated time slots. If necessary, make minor adjustments to agenda items to achieve the desired results. Aim for approximately a one-hour meeting duration to maintain focus and effectiveness. For more extended discussions, arrange separate meetings or specialized brainstorming sessions to address them appropriately.

Agenda always helps to keep the meeting and discussion on track. Sharing it before the meeting can really help attendees to prepare and think well hence enhancing the better quality of discussion. A good agenda should be clear, easy to understand and on point so that everyone can think in same line.

It is important to have an agenda shared in advance to the participants. One thing that needs to be kept in mind is also to share an alocated time for each of the agenda items. I have attended many meetings where only one of the agenda items was covered in the entire meeting. A way to manage this kind of situation is to moderate the discussions within the objectives and context of the meeting and whenever participants go out of this, politely bring them back. There will be situations where the discussions will be important, but not necessarily in the context of the meeting, in which case it should be taken up for a separate discussion

1. Title, Date, and Attendees: Clearly state meeting details and list participants. 2. Objectives: Outline specific goals for the meeting. 3. Time Allocation: Assign specific durations to agenda items. 4. Welcome and Introduction: Set the meeting’s tone and purpose. 5. Review Previous Minutes: Address any pending action items from prior meetings. 6. Presentation/Discussion Topics: List main discussion points with brief descriptions. 7. Assign Responsibilities: Specify who leads each agenda item. 8. Action Items and Follow-Up: Clearly state decisions and assign tasks with deadlines. 9. Open Floor for Questions/Comments: Allow time for participant input. 10. Adjournment: End the meeting on time, summarizing key takeaways and action items.

Keeping planned and frequent meetings will enhance productivity in business /overcoming issues in the system / knowing the capabilities and planning of the team / reducing risk factors in the business and the meetings has to be specific to the point wasting any precious time of the organization.

Facilitation is an underestimated skill and one that if done well keeps the meeting on track while supporting all the involved individuals feel heard. The area I would zoom in on is that facilitation is about getting the best information on the table and managing who is being heard in relation to specific topics that need to be covered. Often 1-2 individuals will talk the most and not necessarily based on their expertise areas and what they can bring to the conversation. It's the role of the facilitator or host to make sure the relevant experts for a particular topic get space to share their knowledge. The same goes for the more introverted colleagues.

Yes, in my experience as a facilitator you are responsible to do followings: 1.Set the context and tone of meeting. 2.Refresh the agenda with timelines and who will present what, Expected outcome. 3. Set the meeting agreements and guidelines like no call during discussion , no complaints etc 4. Keep engaging everyone while asking questions and keep asking to share their views who has not spoken. 5.Keep the track of time and topic of discussions. 6. Note down the outcome of discussed points and response awaiting from anyone. 7. Refresh the discussed outcome for each points and take confirmation from all attendees at the end of meeting 8.Share MOM with deadlines if any action any points and follow up post meeting.

One of the major challenges of running the meeting is to avoid people pushing their agendas and high jacking the meeting. Many a times it the most vocal person who gets to express their views. One of the practices I do to avoid these situations is to invite the most silent person to talk first and that encourages others to express their opinions as well. Ultimately, everyone needs to own the decisions and there is no better way than to make those decisions in an inclusive manner

Summarizing the key points is important, but many a times you may not have time for this. So what i do is to send a minute of the meeting immediately after the meeting and ask people to provide updates to the minutes of the meeting. The advantage of sending it immediately is that the discussion topics are fresh in people's mind and they are more likely to respond if they have any comments. The other important thing is to assign ownership and due dates for any follow up items. When people see their names against an activity it is more likely that either they will comments or make an edit tot it

Agree, the summary play an important role while signing off the meeting. It reminds the points decisions outcome as well any action for others. It’s also the opportunity to set expectation for future meetings. It help to take feedback and improvement for making it more efficient and productive.

I follow the below practices to make meetings efficient and productive. 1. Prepare the meeting agenda with specific topics of discussion and intended outcome and send before meeting. 2. Invite only the stakeholders which can either positively contribute to the discussion or have high level of interest in the meeting agenda. 3. Allocate approximate time for meeting topics and facilitate the discussion to ensure we don't run out of time for topics. 4. Summarize the outcome of meeting , list down all action items and circulate among all stakeholders. 5. Learn from your previous meetings and evaluate with time.

Think outside the meeting. Meetings are only productive if they are the most effective way to accomplish the objective. For example, if brainstorming can be accomplished asynchronously in a collaborative document or whiteboard, that may be the more effective approach. It allows for team members to contribute outside the constraints of a time box (which is better for introverts or others that need processing time), and enables more focus time for other activities.

One of the things that I observed is to have short duration meetings are more effective than longer ones. Ideally 30 minutes blocks will be the most effective ones. Anything more than one hour, you will lose the attendees. It is also important to have only the people who are essential only invited. Should not invite all the people who just need to be informed. If we follow the practice of sending minutes of the meeting, all the people who need to be informed can also be looped in the mail lists. Quick huddles can be done with just two or three people as well.

One of the key points to run effective and engaging meetings is to be mindful of who needs to be invited, too few people could result in information silos whereas too many would leave people disengaged and overwhelmed with the invites. Such scenarios could be managed with recorded meetings and sending meeting notes to others who may not be able to attend, but need to know the outcomes to plan their deliveables. Effectively leveraging technology is also key. Using features like whiteboarding, keeping the automatic 5 minute time check enabled in Teams and post meeting feedback surveys can save manual efforts. The recent Speaker Coach feature helps organisers with their speaking skills as well.

Where possible try to have face to face meetings or workshops those are always productive then breaking the project meetings into multiple calls since those are never effective