There are meetings, and then there are meetings.
Some of them go quickly. You come out of the meeting feeling like you actually accomplished something.
And then there are the other kind of meetings. It lasts exactly the amount of time scheduled in your calendar, and everyone leaves in a haze and with an invite to the dreaded “follow-up meeting”.
You can’t control everyone else’s meetings, but as someone once said “you must be the change you wish to see in your company’s meetings”.
So here’s how to make your own meetings suck less:
- Have a focused purpose for your meeting. If your meeting is for a vague purpose, you’re going to go in a vague direction. Good meeting topics: “Landing Page X Design Review”, “Engagement Tracking Implementation for New Users”, “Top 3 Goals For Website Redesign”. Bad meeting names: “Landing Pages”, “Tracking Pixels”, “Website Redesign”.
- Don’t have brainstorming sessions. These always end up as wasted hours. Instead, figure out the problem and ask people to come to the table with a few solutions. Then, name you meeting something specific. Example: “API changes we can make to support feature X in product Y”.
- In the description field of your meeting invite, add the questions that must be answered by your meeting. Meetings should be held to present information or answer questions, so get people thinking about them (even subconsciously) before your meeting.
- Only invite people that must be there to get those specific questions answered. You most likely don’t need the VP of marketing there to discuss the technology behind tracking pixels. Talk to him before or fill him in later, depending on your company’s culture.
- Stay focused! Once the meeting is underway, keep trucking towards your pre-stated meeting goals. Everyone’s been in meetings that stray, and rarely is anyone richer for the experience.