Meeting Management: Tips to Boost Productivity

Ask any professional across the world and industries, and they will all tell you the same thing about meetings: They are essential but also very time-consuming. Given the fact that no matter how people may feel about meetings, they continue to serve purposes across companies of all scale and sizes, companies, of course, conduct many meetings. After all, they keep things moving along in the business and its many processes. And yet some issues are, let’s say, common to pretty much all the meetings in the world? Research shows that, on average, an executive spends around 18 hours in meetings every week! 

Given the time spent in just meetings, it becomes hard to imagine how anyone can be productive at all and get things done? And fair enough — it is indeed challenging to achieve satisfying levels of productivity in such scenarios. However, we have been quick to find a solution that most businesses in the world seem to be struggling with: say hello to Meeting Management, the newest concept that is making waves all over the world. What is it, you ask; well, as the name suggests, it is a collection of practices, often aided by technology and advanced tools, to help companies glean the most value out of the meetings organized across their business. Unfortunately, it is the ‘practices’ bit that can be a tough nut to crack. So, to help you make sure that that doesn’t happen to you as well, we have put together a list of the foremost meeting management best practices in the world.

    1. Be punctual: One of the best practices in meeting management is starting meetings on time. It may seem simple enough, but you would be amazed just how many people are allowed to be tardy in this context. Unfortunately, this tardiness, even if minimal, can take a heavy toll on the meeting’s ability to deliver productive results. So, don’t allow latecomers, and if the person organizing the conference is late, it would be okay to wait for 5-7 minutes, but not longer than that.
    2. Don’t stray from the key topic: The thing about discussions is that they tend to wander off from the central theme and we do not have to tell you how much time that can cost. One of the best remedies to prevent folks from straying from the main topic would be to charge someone with the responsibility, i.e. assign the duty to one person and inform the other attendees of their role as well.
    3. Make and share meeting minutes: It is always a good idea for someone other than the meeting organizer to take down the meeting’s minutes, which should ideally include the venue, date, and time; meeting’s agenda; overview of action items, timelines, conclusions; and more. And while it would be ideal for sharing these notes among attendees as soon as the meeting is concluded, if that isn’t possible, make sure it is sent to them before the end of the day.
    4. Don’t multitask during a meeting: Yes, yes; this may seem like a sin, but hear us out. Multitasking is excellent — there is no denying that, but there is a time and place for everything, and a meeting is not one of those times. So, to prevent this, a good idea would be to have a pre-decided agenda, assign roles to attendees, and more.
    5. Don’t stretch meetings on: The thing about the human attention span is that it can be concise. Studies have shown that attendees’ attention levels drop substantially after the first 30 minutes. So, if you want your meetings to be productive, it is essential to make sure that they don’t stretch on longer than they need to.

And despite what some people may tell you, meeting management is not all that complex. All you need is a robust meeting management solution and best practices to ensure high levels of productivity all around.