How to Plan and Conduct an Effective Meeting

So you have decided you need to call a meeting to discuss an important item with your staff or coworkers… now what? Aside from having a thorough understanding of the topic at hand, there are several things to consider when thinking about how you want your meeting to run. Could your meeting be conducted virtually (via Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc.)? What will your agenda look like and will someone else need to present some of the information? How much time do you expect to need for the necessary information to be presented and discussed? Will there be follow-up items or meetings? Addressing these components and other questions ahead of time will make for a more efficient and smoothly-run meeting while also being considerate of everyone’s time.

Before attempting to officially schedule a meeting or draft an agenda, there are some important preliminary items to consider in the planning phase. Do you actually need to have a meeting? Avoid scheduling meetings on a pre-determined interval without having content that currently needs to be discussed. This can avoid meeting fatigue and will potentially maximize engagement when meetings do occur. Do you want to meet in-person or virtually? Pros and cons for in-person vs. virtual meetings exist for both formats. Primary meeting topics that are more dependent on the attendees relationships with each other and/or are of increasing complexity tend to be better presented and discussed in-person. Meetings with task-based topics and those that are simpler by nature are more easily conducted virtually. Another potential benefit of meeting virtually is that this format is generally more inclusive and can help to increase attendance and representation. ³ A final time-saving tip for the planning phase once the meeting is scheduled is to send any attachments or supporting documents prior to the actual meeting date to allow for review by the attendees ahead of time. This can encourage higher-level discussion and avoid having to allow time for review during the meeting or wasting time catching people up to speed with these items.

Now you are ready to draft your agenda. This is your blueprint for how the meeting will actually occur in real-time.  List out the items that need to be discussed during the meeting. This is important both for you to keep up while conducting the meeting and also to provide expectations for how the meeting will run for attendees. Assign speaker(s) to each agenda item.² Ensure that the individual(s) responsible for leading the discussion about each item are the best qualified to speak on that particular topic. It may also be helpful to break agenda items up into “new business” and “old business” if your meeting has any continuing discussion from a prior meeting. Lastly, consider order of agenda items and particularly the urgency of discussing the items in this particular meeting. Unfortunately, meetings can sometimes run out of time and you want to ensure your most important agenda items are discussed if you need to table some of the less important items for another scheduled meeting.

It’s time for your meeting. Designate someone to take minutes during the meeting in order to make them available to those that cannot attend and to reference, if needed, at a later time. It is very important to start on time. It isn’t effective to wait for stragglers. Follow your agenda. Don’t allow discussion to travel too far off-course. Most importantly, as the facilitator of the meeting your job is to monitor time, steer discussion (if needed), and move on to the next item if discussion stalls or reaches a stalemate. This is a crucial skill that maximizes the efficacy/efficiency of your meeting and will only improve as you conduct more meetings. Along those same lines, encourage equal participation from your group. Avoid letting the same one or two people dominate discussion and, if needed, prompt less outspoken attendees to share their ideas and opinions. Finally, create an action plan in the last few minutes of the meeting and be specific about what follow-up is needed and who is responsible for making sure this happens. This is a very important step to ensure your meeting is effective and doesn’t result in productive discussion that does not provide the desired result ^1,3

Finally, your meeting is over. You are almost finished! Follow-up on deadlines with the attendees responsible for items on your action plan and make sure they are clear. ¹ A final suggested step after your meeting is finished is to conduct an evaluation of how the meeting went. How do you think the meeting went overall? Are there skills for you to improve on to conduct your meetings in a more effective way next time? Are there future meetings needed for further discussion on particular items? Ensuring the proper planning and drafting a solid agenda before your meeting, conducting your meeting with engaging discussion while keeping an eye on timing, and following up on your action plan are sure-fire steps to take to make your meeting the most efficient and effective that it can be while being respectful of everyone’s time.

– Dillon Elliott, member of the 2022 Emerging Leaders Cohort

References

1. Bryant, Adam. “How to Run a More Effective Meeting.” The New York Times, 2019, www.nytimes.com/guides/business/how-to-run-an-effective-meeting.
2. “Effective Meeting Strategies.” Winthrop University. https://www.winthrop.edu/uploadedFiles/clubsorgs/leadership/Effective-Meeting-Strategies.pdf
3. Ringel, Rae. “When Do We Actually Need to Meet in Person?” Harvard Business Review, 26 July 2021, hbr.org/2021/07/when-do-we-actually-need-to-meet-in-person.

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