Meetings can be unbearable and can be considered a waste of one’s time. If done the right way and with the right content, however, you and your team may be looking at a well spent hour or two.
Everyone except for a select few dislike meetings. The Muse’s Caroline Liu, however, has been reading up on how to make them worth everyone’s time and has concluded with these seven tips below.
First of all, ask yourself if setting up a meeting amidst other ongoing meetings for the month or for the week is necessary. Check out the recurring meetings, what are they tackling, and then determine if holding another get together is worth another hour in a conference room.
Secondly, poor meetings are a result of poor planning. So, once you schedule a meeting, take the time beforehand to plan out the points to discuss and goals to achieve by the end of the hour.
Third, communicating is vital in a meeting; if that fails, the meeting is definitely a waste of time. Whenever you see your team or anyone in the room is looking confused or a bit lost in the conversation, ask some clarifying questions to help everyone get on the same track.
A fourth way to make meetings more efficient is to avoid scheduling back to back meetings. Block out time in your own calendar to ensure that that does not happen and that you get everything you need to get across during the one time.
Fifth, if you have already scheduled a meeting but are in need to cancel it, what do you do? Think if the meeting can be shortened to five minutes or if you can still brief and update the team through instant messaging or email.
The sixth tip is to keep it short. How? By holding a standup meeting and not a seated one, you can make sure that what you have to remind your team stays short and memorable.
Lastly, if it is difficult to gather a large group together to talk about goals, projects, and reports, stick to a shorter time frame or set specific objectives and agendas.
For more meeting tips, here are other nine ways from Jobs & Hire.
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