Given how much time most of us spend in meetings, did you ever wonder why so many of them suck? Most often it’s because we don’t have a clear purpose for the meeting.
For most organizations, about once a month, you should be pulling your people together to review your key business indicators, and your results against plan – in other words, hold a Business Review Meeting. This helps to focus your own efforts, and those of everyone else on your team. It’s also a powerful team building exercise.
Monday’s Tip: Have a purpose for your meeting or don’t bother having it. Calculate how much the meeting is going to cost you in labour, and if you’re not sure you going to generate that much value – cancel the meeting.
Tuesday’s Tip: Be Prepared. A successful meeting depends on a number of things happening before you ever set foot in the room. Circulate an agenda.
Wednesday’s Tip: Show up with Data. “In God we Trust – All Others Bring Data”. For a Business Review Meeting, you need to have data in graphical format that tells a story. Remember to highlight your Baseline, Actual, Target, Trend (BATT).
Thursday’s Tip: Control the Meeting. Any participant can ask at any time if the discussion has gone off track. Stick to your agenda, stay on-task, and adjourn early whenever possible.
Friday’s Tip: Record follow up actions. Just like a meeting without an agenda in advance is probably a waste of time, a meeting without documented follow up actions is definitely a waste of time. Who has to do what by when? Write it down.