Meeting Overload

In October of last year, we committed to getting more efficient and we were all challenged to cut down on meetings.  We’ve been somewhat successful, but I have noticed the last two weeks we are creeping back up in the number of meetings and even more so in the meetings scheduled over meetings over meetings.

I thought it might be a good time to take a PAUSE and get your feedback on how we are doing with the following:

• Meeting agendas – creating agendas and sending them out before the meetings or, better yet, in the calendar invite.  This helps all know what to expect and enables them to prepare.
• Setting time limits – Time limits help ensure the meetings stay on track and don’t run over. 
• Thinking before scheduling the meeting – Instead of automatically scheduling a meeting, ask yourself can I get this done in an alternative way?
• Sending out post-meeting summaries – It is essential to capture the time investment and to summarize what was discussed and decided on.
• Arriving on time / Starting on time – It is critical that we begin to respect the time of others by arriving on time and starting meetings on time.
• Recording meetings and saving to a common location so that when the meeting notes are published, all who missed or were late can go to that commonplace.

Please let me know how you think we are doing with the above and how I can support you and the team in adopting the best practices above.

Happy Thursday all,

-srt