Meetings take up a lot of time. They can be a drain on your time and your organisation's resources. Meetings become more about activity than productive outcomes. We have been working with a number of teams to improve their effectiveness in meetings. Below are some of the strategies that have made a difference.
Strategy 1 - For each agenda item, place a thinking verb in front, for example generate ideas, make a decision, share information. Determining the thinking outcome helps you to prepare for the agenda item and gets the team thinking in the same direction instead of one person trying to find out more, another wanting to solve a problem, another generating ideas etc which leads to debate and often taking the team off the task. E-mail: mail@debono.org for a thinking verb list.
Strategy 2 - For each agenda item take two minutes for individual thinking before tackling the agenda item. This allows for individuals to think through what they want to say and gives the less articulate person an opportunity to gather their thoughts.
Strategy 3 - Buy a timer. At the end of each agenda item write down how much time is to be spent. For example:
Agenda
- Explore ... (issue) - 2 minutes individual thinking time, the 5 minutes discussion.
- Generate ideas on ........ - 2 minutes individual thinking, the 4 minutes sharing and building.
- Make a decision on ...... - 1 minute individual thinking, 5 minutes discussion.
The timing is based on about having 6 people in a meeting.
If further time is needed, then the time is extend for a couple more minutes.
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