After recently listening to Effective Meeting podcasts I would like someone options/comments to help me improve my standing meeting which is held 2 weekly with my manager and peers (6 people in all).
There are obvious things I can see that need to be improved from listening to the podcast.
To name but a few...
Start time, end time, agenda to include actual time rather than duration in minutes. Certain agenda items just seem to go on rather than being stopped and deliverables agreed (who, when etc), parking lot to put issues in that are outside of the agenda.
Separate to the agenda we have a Project/Actions log. This has detailed description of the project/action, date raised, due date, update comments, individual assigned etc.
The are currently 33 projects and 6 action listed on the log. This log only gets updated as part of the meeting, and seems to eat into most of the meeting time. I agree it should be a large part of the meeting, but this tends to be the reason the meetings over run (extending it from 2-3 hours up to 4 hours).
My manager tends to facilitate the meeting, with myself updating the project/actions log through the meeting.
Has anybody been in a similar position in the past that can help??
All the best,
Paul.
Effective Meetings
Does the Project/Action log have to be discussed at the meeting or is it something that the project/action owners could email you with their input the day before and you just summarise/report back to the meeting? If there are any specific points that do need to be discussed these could be handled as exceptions and given agenda time.
Maybe have a template (maybe something along the lines of a PRINCE2 checkpoint report) they can use for the updates/report to you that can then be made available with the meeting notes and log*, with possibly a one or two line summary in the meeting notes. That way people can access the detail if it's important to them (e.g. their project has a dependency on someone else's project) but if it's not (and that would be the part of the meeting they'd zone out or start praying to their Blackberry) they can ignore it.
Stephen
* I know people don't usually read attachments but I have found they are more likely to if they know that the content is important to them, i.e. impacts on the goals they will be measured on. Headline in the meeting notes, more detail in the attachment if you want it.
Effective Meetings
Paul,
If it's not your meeting, there is little you can do. Your boss runs it.
Make sure your portion is crisp and on time. Listen attentively. Read back the action items at the end (who is going to do what by when).
When you run a meeting, use the techniques in the cast. When others see how effective they are, they may adopt some of what you're doing.
You could offer to your boss to prepare the agenda. Be careful about pushing too hard here, as your boss may actually like the way the meeting is being run.
John