Holding Effective Meetings

1. Do we really need to meet?
2. Who really needs to be at this meeting? If you are going to take some of other people’s precious time away from them, you’d better have a damn good reason!
3. A meeting is a little mini-project. Therefore it needs:
   • A goal [what’s the meeting trying to accomplish?]
   • A plan [An agenda i.e. what we are going to do at the meeting which will result in the achievement of the goal?]
   • A leader (chairperson).
4. Decline / refuse / don’t to go if you’re not given these three things.
5. Be on time.
6. No multi-tasking – no device usage unless necessary for meeting.
7. If you’re not getting anything out of the meeting, it should be okay to leave.
8. Meetings are not for information sharing – that should be done before the meeting via email and / or the agenda. In other words, the meeting isn’t the place to read the stuff you should have read before the meeting.
9. Assign action items at the conclusion of the meeting.
10. Don’t feel bad about calling people out if they’re in breach of any of the above; it’s the right thing to do.

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