The Secret to a Good Meeting? Preparation- By Jenny Fernandez, Kathryn Landis, and Julie Lee

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When we step into our first managerial roles, no one teaches us how to lead a great meeting — a critical skill for management. No one stresses the most important step: you must prepare. Unfortunately, this lack of preparation is felt by everyone. If you’re a new leader, you can help turn this trend around. Set yourself up for success by learning how to master the pre-meeting — the steps you need to take before a more formal meeting in order to prepare for it.

• Know why you’re holding a meeting. Focus on the desired objective(s) or purpose of your upcoming meeting. Typically, a meeting is only worth people’s time it its purpose is to make a decision, identify creative solutions or coordinate actions, or for one-way information sharing. If your meeting doesn’t fit into any of these categories, you should evaluate if it’s worth having.
• Craft a clear agenda. First, use your purpose to create an outline of what you want to cover during the meeting. Now, identify the amount of time you need to allocate to each of these items. This process will also help you determine the overall meeting length.? Once you’ve nailed down your agenda items, determine who should attend the meeting and why. What role will they play in your meeting? Many leaders over-invite participants to be inclusive, but this can actually lead to decreased productivity and meeting fatigue.
• Prepare your talking points. Educate yourself on the meeting topic, focusing on how it has been discussed at your organization in the past (if applicable). This is a crucial step as you may be dealing with a topic that has been discussed or attempted by prior teams. Review any documentation that is available to you — slide decks and minutes from meetings that have been focused on this topic previously.
• Help your participants prepare, too. In your pre-meeting research, you may find prior presentations or documents that would help your meeting participants get up to speed and make your time together more effective. If you want your meeting participants to do any pre-reading, it’s a good practice to distribute any documents at least two to three business days in advance of the meeting.close

Whether you’re giving a presentation, interviewing for a job, or trying to run an effective meeting, the outcome rarely depends on chance. In nearly everything we do, there is a strong correlation between preparation and the likelihood of success.

Still, when we step into our first managerial roles, no one teaches us how to lead a great meeting. No one stresses the most important step: you must prepare. Unfortunately, this lack of preparation is felt by everyone. One survey found that 71%?of senior managers believe that meetings are inefficient.?Another survey found that almost 40% of employees consider unproductive meetings to be the highest cost to their organizations. This aligns with research findings that suggest only half of all meetings are effective, well-used, and engaging. Those numbers drop even lower when it comes to remote meetings.

If you’re a new leader, you can help turn this trend around. Set yourself up for success by learning how to master the pre-meeting — the steps you need to take before a more formal meeting in order to prepare for it.

Step 1: Know why you’re holding a meeting.

The first step you should take is to ask yourself: Why am I holding this meeting (the more formal meeting) in the first place? Focus on the desired objective(s) or purpose of your upcoming meeting. Typically, a meeting is only worth people’s time if its purpose fits into one of the following categories, according to McKinsey research:

1. Decision-making: Is this meeting going to help us produce a direction? This may look like a meeting to discuss quarterly performance, new company policies, setting a budget, or future strategies.
2. Identifying creative solutions and coordinating actions: Is this meeting going to give people an opportunity to share their ideas and perspectives? Examples include hackathons, recurring planning, and kick-off meetings for new projects.
3. One-way information sharing: Will this meeting help clarify issues or help with team building? Meetings such as company-wide “townhalls”, briefings or webinars, and business update meetings fall into this category.

Pro tip: If your meeting doesn’t fit into any of these categories, you should evaluate if it’s worth having. Maybe you can utilize an alternative communication method that may be more efficient. For instance, to collect feedback or opinions, a survey is often better than an in-person meeting as individuals can complete at their convenience with ample time to craft their responses. In a similar vein, to communicate a brief update, consider recording a two to three minute video that can be distributed via email, Slack and/or the company’s intranet.

Step 2: Craft a clear agenda

If you’ve confirmed that your meeting is worth holding, it’s time to start working on the agenda. This includes two smaller steps: figuring out your agenda items and assigning them to an “owner.”

Identifying your agenda items?

Use your purpose to create an outline of what you want to cover during the meeting. It can be helpful to put together a list of questions you’d like to have answered.

For example, let’s say you’re preparing for a meeting to discuss a new project kick-off. Your primary purpose is to coordinate actions, establish clear communication channels, and ensure full alignment on the project scope, timelines, roles, responsibilities, and successful outcome. Here’s a list of questions you might want to address:

• What are the key objectives of this meeting (i.e., setting the team’s norms, ways of working, communication cadence, etc)?
• What are the main deliverables and milestones for the project? What are specific decisions or turning points?
• What are the potential risks and challenges we may face?
• What follow-up actions and next steps should be discussed and assigned at the end of the meeting?
• Are there any learnings from a similar past project that would be helpful?

Now, identify the amount of time you need to allocate to each of these questions, keeping in mind that we tend to underestimate how long it will take us to get things done. This process will also help you determine the overall meeting length. Some argue that 30 minutes is the ideal length of a productive meeting, but ultimately it will depend on the complexity of the topic, number of agenda items being discussed, and the participant’s familiarity with the subject. (As previously referenced, if you estimate that a meeting will only require 15 minutes, it could probably just be an email.) If you have a robust agenda to discuss, consider having a 45 minute or at the absolute maximum a 60 minute. Since people sometimes find themselves back to back in meetings, it’s a good idea to end before the hour is over if possible. Once you cross the one hour mark, you run the risk of losing many attendees as they will be forced to decide if they should remain in your meeting or join a second discussion.

Assigning an “owner” to your agenda items

Once you’ve nailed down your agenda items, determine who should attend the meeting and why. What role will they play in your meeting? Many leaders over-invite participants to be inclusive, but this can actually lead to decreased productivity and meeting fatigue. When deciding who should attend, ask yourself:

• Who are the key stakeholders that need to be included? These may be representatives of a group that will be directly impacted (i.e., end user, a minority stakeholder group), or those who have the power to veto a decision that’s made (i.e., legal, finance or IT).
• If the meeting’s objective is to make a decision, who are the decision-makers? Are you inviting the people who have the final say and authority on the subject? It’s important to get the opinions of non-decision-makers ahead of time, but inviting too many of them to your meeting may stop it from advancing as planned.
• Is everyone on my list needed to help brainstorm a solution or coordinate actions? Asking this question will help you identify the participants who need to be involved at each stage of the meeting, or who should “own” which agenda item to ensure it is executed properly.

Here’s an example of a detailed agenda for a new project kick-off meeting.

See more HBR charts in Data & Visuals

Table title: A template for a detailed meeting agenda.

Source: Authors.

Pro tip: Seek feedback on your outline, especially if you’re new to leading meetings. You can ask others for their feedback on who should be in your meeting, review the roles of each meeting participant to ensure all “owners” are prepared, gather relevant background information on the topic, and decide on the meeting modality (virtual or in-person).

Step 3: Prepare your talking points

Once you’ve nailed down the agenda, and solicited feedback from your peers, the next step is to educate yourself on the meeting topic, focusing on how it has been discussed at your organization in the past (if applicable). This is a crucial step as you may be dealing with a topic that has been discussed or attempted by prior teams. So, you may have teammates that have already worked on a similar project goal so you need to understand why it may have not moved forward or why it failed. It will prepare you if you get pushback from cross functional partners and get asked the proverbial question, “Why should it work now when it didn’t work before?” By proactively preparing yourself in this way, you will establish a reputation as an effective and well prepared manager and also empower yourself to manage challenging situations.

Review any documentation that is available to you — slide decks and minutes from meetings that have been focused on this topic previously. You should also consult with peers who are knowledgeable on the topic in order to make sure you’re operating with the most up-to-date information available, ensuring that your meeting is not only productive yet also positioning yourself as a well-informed leader.

Use the information you gather to prepare your talking points. Ask yourself: What ideas are essential for me to get across in this meeting? What has been discussed before that needs to be reiterated? What doesn’t need to be reiterated? How can I get my points across clearly and concisely? What questions may the group raise that I can anticipate and answer?

Don’t put together a full script. You’ll be tempted to read it verbatim, which could make your delivery stale and disengaging. Instead, list out a few bullet points, cues or short phrases associated with each agenda item to keep yourself on track. Write them down so they’re visible to you during the meeting. For example, for a virtual meeting, you can use post-it notes and place them on the computer screen. For in-person meetings, you can carry note cards or a small notebook to reference.

Pro tip: Think through how you’ll present each item on your agenda to your colleagues: Is this group accustomed to visual aids like a slide deck? Would a whiteboard be useful to map out an idea or plan, or perhaps a Google Doc or Mural whiteboard if the meeting is virtual?

Step 4: Help your participants prepare, too

Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos famously required executive-level meetings to begin with the reading of multi-page memos to ensure everyone had the necessary context for a productive discussion. In many organizations, it’s common for individuals to review background information prior to a meeting to maximize the discussion time with colleagues. It is critical that the meeting participants have a foundational level of knowledge about the topic so you’re not spending time playing catch-up.

In your pre-meeting research, you may find prior presentations or documents that would help your meeting participants get up to speed and make your time together more effective. If you want your meeting participants to do any pre-reading, it’s a good practice to distribute any documents at least two to three business days in advance of the meeting.

Pro tip: If this is not feasible (i.e., not an organizational culture norm) to assign “pre-work” to meetings, consider allocating meeting time for participants to read background materials and prepare their initial thoughts in parallel so everyone is on the same page.

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While these steps may seem time-consuming, as a new manager, you (and your colleagues) will undoubtedly benefit from your meeting planning and preparation efforts. Leading an effective meeting is an opportunity for you to advance your influence, accelerate momentum on key projects and initiatives, and further collaboration among team members while respecting everyone’s time.