5 Tips to Shorten Meeting Time!

Posted by Kelley LearcloseAuthor: Kelley Lear Name: Kelley Lear
Email: kelley.lear@redmoonsolutions.com
Site: http://blog.redmoonsolutions.com
About: Kelley is a member of the executive leadership team and leads our sales and marketing efforts at Red Moon Solutions. Kelley’s extensive experience in project management, product management, and consulting with Fortune 500 and Global 1000 clients is extremely important in this role.See Authors Posts (127) on Jan 18, 2012 | 2 comments

For all you business professionals out there, how many times have you sat in the meeting thinking one or more of the following:

1. Who called this meeting?
2. What is this the purpose of this meeting?
3. Are we going to accomplish something in this meeting or are we here to hear Joe/Sally talk on in tangents with no apparent end?
4. Who is in charge of this craziness?
5. I want to stick a pen in my eye just so that I can have an excuse to escape this meeting!

Well…if any of those has crossed your mind, in addition to the occasional day dream or heightened blood pressure which can sometimes arise during the course of our meeting packed day, then perhaps you need to bring some game changers to the table. Here are several quick tips:
1. Invite people to fifteen minute meetings. Most business people set up meeting times in hour or two hour blocks. It is rare that you even see a half hour meeting being scheduled. So, why don’t you buck the trend and set up fifteen minute meetings? People will hate to show up late to your fifteen minute meeting that you start directly on time. When I was a hands on project manager I did this for all status calls and project updates. In fact, if any discussion was going to take longer than the fifteen minutes allotted we quickly discussed why (to ensure that we in fact needed longer to debate/discuss), and set up a targeted meeting to address only that one point (with only the appropriate participants).

2. Don’t let anyone have a seat.  Stand up! If people are sitting and relaxed waiting for a meeting, they begin to lose urgency, fast. Also, most people won’t linger on an issue, or talk a topic into a rat hole, if their feet hurt or they are uncomfortable. I recently read a Harvard Business Review article in which they even recommend removing chairs from the room (I don’t do this, but it is an idea). When folks are standing up all facing each other, they tend to engage more readily and are often more attentive.

3. Whomever sets up the meeting OWNS that meeting. “Owning” the meeting means that you should have:

• A set timeframe for the meeting
• A stated objective or purpose for the meeting – meaning you need to be able to tell people why you are having the meeting and what you expect to come away with. Stated deliverable(s) from that meeting (even if it is just a decision).
• The ability to facilitate the discussion. In other words, keep the discussion pointed and on track. If the discussion digresses, you need to “table those discussion” or create a “parking lot” for those items on the white board or computer and follow up on those at a later date. This person also needs to make sure that the objective for the meeting is met and that the deliverables are accomplished.

4. Show the cost of the meeting. You can show the calculated hourly cost of having the group together, at the top of the agenda. This can easily be estimated and offered up. I actually learned this great skill from a friend of mine who was spectacular at telling people (very directly),  how much each meeting was costing them. He really hated wasting time – his own, and other peoples’. Often times, not only are meetings way too long, but also too many people are invited who are not actually needed to accomplish the goal of the meeting. In addition, sometimes a meeting might not be needed at all, and a quick personal chat or an email would have sufficed.

5. Send short bulleted follow up notes from the meeting. Now, you may not need this coming out of every meeting…however, for most meetings a quick follow up note should be sent out or added to the bottom of the orginal agenda for all participants to review.  It summarizes what was discussed, determined and achieved during that meeting. That way, everyone is sure to be on the same page as to what was accomplished and will all agree that the meeting was necessary, and successful.

Do you have any tips that you want to share? Love to hear more innovative ways to hold effective meetings. Perhaps giving a quarterly prize to the team member who consistenly calls and facilitates the shortest and most effective meetings?  Just thought I would share some basic points that always work for me…