What do you do if your meetings are unproductive and wasting time?

A meeting can be scheduled when it is necessary to make a decision. Organizing a meeting for every issue becomes a waste of time and an uninteresting habit. If you need to make a decision or solve a problem that is bothering you, you should first look at what is the shortest way: to talk to a small number of related people on the phone, to have a meeting, or to make a video call. We should try to keep the number and duration of meetings to a minimum, in this case, the effectiveness of the meetings will increase, and time will not be wasted.

Firstly, we need to evaluate the necessity of each meeting and consider whether it can be replaced with a more efficient communication method such as email updates or brief status reports. Next, establish clear objectives and agendas for every meeting, ensuring that participants understand the purpose and desired outcomes beforehand. Encourage active participation by limiting the number of attendees to only those essential to the discussion and ask for feedback from participants to identify areas for improvement and implement necessary changes to enhance future productivity.

Always establish the “why” of the meeting. Is this meeting strategic or informative. I always ask, especially with informative meetings, could this be shared as an email? When establishing the “why” of anything, we dig down into the purpose of the thing. Knowing what we want to achieve allows us to structure the meeting and avoid unproductive encounters.

"Step back and think about what you want to achieve in the meetings. Do they match up with what the team or organization wants to accomplish? Think about if there are other ways to get the same results faster, like using emails, working together on documents, or having shorter, more focused meetings.

Meetings need a reason. Find a reason NOT to hold the meeting and if you cannot find a real reason NOT to hold the meeting, then the purpose is NOT clear and you should NOT hold the meeting.

Develop a detailed agenda outlining the topics to be discussed, the time allotted for each item, and any materials or preparation needed. Share the agenda with participants before the meeting.

Make a list of what we will talk about in the meeting. This is called an agenda. Say what we hope to achieve from each topic on the agenda. Give this agenda to everyone coming to the meeting before it happens. This gives them time to get ready and join in the discussion well. Decide how much time we'll spend on each topic to make sure we don't run out of time and stay on topic during the meeting.

Once you cannot find a reason to NOT hold the meeting, then determine the agenda. Use as few agenda points as possible. I strive for three or less. If more points are needed, then a meeting will not solve all the problems, folks will be sitting there waiting for their turn to talk about their particular subject and attentions will wander. Be specific in what you want accomplished in a meeting. Sometimes dropping in for a five minute chat can solve a problem or relate valuable information better than a full meeting.

In many cases, a collaborative agenda might be the best option. This allows for all stakeholders involved to take ownership of the outcome of the meeting. Agendas should clearly define the objective, prioritize topics, allocate time for each topic, define review and follow up measures and incorporate buffer time.

If you do not have enough items to discuss for 15 minutes, then do not waste time having a meeting. That is the first step. But if there is enough to discuss, you need to prepare a full agenda with the items of the day/week/month and who is point for each item to discuss. Again, make sure you have a meeting minutes taker for record keeping. There is nothing wrong with having a 30 minute meeting that turns out to be 15 or 20. Just do not make that a habit. Keep track of your meeting minutes to see where you can improve. Maybe you need less meetings? 1 a month? 2 a month? Maybe you need more if you find you run out of time often. Again, the meeting minutes will tell you the story of how effective your meetings are.

Find out who the important people are for the topics we're talking about. Don't ask people to join if they won't really help the discussion or if they might make it harder to focus on what we need to talk about.

Nothing worse than sitting in a meeting that does not effect you. Stolen time is a real thing, so don't be one of those meeting planners. Vanity meetings are a things of the past, get the meeting needs listed out and the right people in the room. When in doubt, avoid inviting someone, ask if the topic or result would effect them. The same thing can be said about missing an important person. Accounting and shipping seem to be left out of important meetings and having to "fix" things in order to make it work.

What is the point of having a meeting with operations if the SME of operations is not there to discuss? That is just one example. Make sure you have identified the right audience first. Confirm they will be attending via email by checking whether they confirmed or not. If they do not confirm, and you have to have them, go speak with them directly and see when you can work them in by comparing calendars. Make sure they know how important they are to the meeting. Then schedule based on availability.

A meeting should be to the point and with the relevant people to allow the most productive result. A good agenda and allowing the members attending time to plan for the meeting at items within the agenda will allow discussions to be to the point and productive

Encourage active participation from all attendees by asking for input, soliciting feedback, and involving everyone in discussions. Ensure quieter participants have opportunities to contribute.

Facilitating is very different from pontificating your ideas and telling people what to say. Ask the questions and keep asking without answering. Work the room and get input from everyone you invited.

Make sure your meetings are OPEN and FREE but organized. You are the ring leader of the meeting if it is your meeting. Know when to dial it back in when discussions draw out to long. Setup an side meeting if needed for that particular issue and move on. Again, it is your meeting. You need to run the show. Make sure everyone is feels free to speak up. If someone is sitting silent, ask them their opinion on a topic that comes up to get them more engaged. Over time, they will come prepared to participate better knowing you may ask them a question in the meeting. The best meetings, are the ones that are organized tightly and stick to the time limit or end a tad early. Always review your meeting minutes to see if you need to adjust!

The chair of the meeting needs to lead the discussion and make sure all members are able to be involved. Training may be needed to allow the chair to make the most of the meeting and get the best results from the staff

Every meeting should be based on important points 1) Objective of the meeting 2) The agenda, which includes all the points we need to talk about. 3) This point relates to my opinion: " we need to record other points that will be mentioned during the meeting by colleagues or department managers. Before the end of the meeting, we need to set a grace period for any future changes related to the meeting, and wait for the results and feedback to be shared at the next meeting. Therefore, the most important point to avoid failure of the meeting objectives is to follow up, listen, and prepare a map for the correct leadership.

Ask the folks you invited to the meeting how it went. What can you do better? Did the right information get discussed for the topic? Were the right people invited? There may be more work after asking how things went. So, grow and learn to become a better meeting leader.

Make it clear that if this is a standing meeting you are always looking for ways to improve it by asking for open feedback and email feedback. You can even use an anonymous survey using survey monkey to see what they might be afraid to say. I would do this quarterly until you have the meetings dialed in. Then you can do the survey twice a year or yearly based on the outcomes of the meetings.

We face this situation all the time. Typically I take a step back and look at the list of attendees to see if we could limit the attendees for the meeting. I also look at the meeting agenda and then it comes to prioritizing and looking at the cost vs benefit of attending a particular meeting. My rough average is about 30% attendance of all meetings in my calendar and I often come out as high performer at the performance evaluation.

Take a brave step & cancel the recurring invite floated once upon a time & the team is ignoring the same religiously. Nothing will change & time will be saved. Not every problem requires brainstorming.

The number of meetings might be a direct reflection of the leadership mindset of that organization. Busyness without any major business not only a time killer but also kills the joy of life@work. Why not do some positive reinforcements straight from the top leadership? At CB we have committed to "no meetings Mondays" implying that we will not have any meeting on Mondays except super exigencies. Try a "no meeting day" and revert with your experience.