Musings on Making Meetings Effective

Some thoughts:

1. Have an agenda.  To make the most of your time you and everyone else need to know what you are talking about, why you are talking about it and keep it moving.
2. Move quickly through items that are of no consequence.  Keep the main thing as the main thing.  Allow time to discuss the big items and those things that require more indepth discussion.
3. Set up working groups.  If an item can be discussed at a different time or if the meeting group don't all need to be involved - then establish a working group.  Findings and resolutions can then be fed back to the main group.
4. If there are follow up actions - remind people.  It is good to turn up to a meeting knowing that actions required from the last meeting have been finished off.  Starting a meeting empowered is the best way to finish as well.
5. Start the clock.  Record how much time you spend on each of the agenda items and reflect on which agenda items actually add value and which ones don't.  Then work on reducing or removing those items from future meetings if they aren't required.