Meetings are a huge factor in a workplace’s overall engagement and productivity. Unproductive meetings, on the other hand, are detrimental in these two aspects and more. Anyone in the workforce industry has experienced an excruciating meeting at one point in their careers, where no benefits and learnings were obtained after.
Business owners or supervisors must consider three things when conducting regular meetings: Objectives, clear agenda, and facilitation. And we’ve narrowed down these three vital aspects into a 5-step meeting cadence that works in any organization.
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Why Unproductive Meetings Are Costly
Did you know that approximately $37 billion is wasted yearly on unnecessary and unproductive meetings in America yearly? Most meeting durations last for an hour or so. This can amount to more or less 30 hours of unproductivity in a month. Multiply that with the number of attendees in your regular meetings. Well, you get the picture.
Common Reasons that Contribute to Inefficient Meetings
So what exactly constitutes unproductive meetings? Here are four of the most common reasons:
- No clear agenda. Some facilitators don’t have a clear plan on how they structure their meetings. Regular quarterly, monthly, and weekly meetings must be aligned with appropriate agendas each.Â
- Long meeting durations. Meetings should only be conducted whenever there are important things to discuss that need asynchronous communication with the entire team. Most facilitators include topics that aren’t necessary for everyone to know.Â
- Redundant attendees. Meeting organizers should only choose attendees who will significantly benefit from the meeting. However, some meetings include people whose roles and responsibilities aren’t even relevant to the agenda.
- Off-topic discussions. Getting sidetracked in a meeting is quite common. Organizers tend to go off-topic without realizing how much time they’ve wasted. This is why appointing a facilitator who will get organizers to stay on course is imperative.
3 Essential Factors in a Productive Meeting
To ensure that meetings are productive, take note of these three crucial components:
- Objectives
- Clear agenda
- Facilitation
Identify objectives
Objectives are different from the purpose of the meeting. Objectives pertain to the primary goal you want to achieve after the end of the session. It primarily consists of a single sentence or a brief paragraph describing what everyone wants to aim for after the meeting.Â
Sample scenario:
The team is working on a massive marketing campaign that involves complicated stages and would need several people/departments to work on various steps that accomplish common goals.
Sample meeting objective:
The objective is to carefully map out the different steps to achieve the main goal of the next marketing campaign by identifying each step and delegating tasks to appropriate teams and departments to stay on schedule.Â
Some key points to consider when writing your meeting objective are:
- Always identify the desired outcome of the objective
- Write in a clear and concise manner
- Reiterate the benefits of accomplishing the objective
- Determine metrics to measure success
- Share this objective to attendees before the meeting for preparation
Have a clear agenda
A meeting agenda is different from the meeting objective. While the objective refers to the outcome you want from the meeting, the agenda jots down the various topics covered.Â
In a nutshell, a meeting agenda serves as an outline for the entire meeting. It may include all the topics, tasks, steps, duration, and people in charge of each. We recommend having this outline before and during the meeting to ensure a seamless and efficient process.Â
Let’s take the marketing campaign example from the objective above. Here’s what a meeting agenda should look like:
Agenda: Marketing Campaign Discussion
Duration: 1 hour
Purpose: Discussion and delegation
Facilitator: Alvin Poh
Details:
- What is the goal of the marketing campaign?
- What are the tasks or steps involved?
- Who are the people in charge of each task or step?
- What are the key metrics to track?
- Things/materials/resources we need to prepare for the marketing project.Â
- Review attached advertising resources, information, and materials.Â
When writing a meeting agenda, do these steps:
- Identify the meeting’s primary goal/s
- Brainstorm for ideas, feedback, suggestions, etc. from attendees
- Jot down all the topics/questions that cover the entirety of the objective
- Write the corresponding facilitator in charge of each
- Specify the time allocated for each topic
- Review/summarize meeting minutes
Appoint a facilitator
As mentioned, off-topic discussions can contribute to wasted minutes in your meeting. That’s why appointing a facilitator is a surefire way to steer the discussions in the right direction. A meeting facilitator doesn’t have to be involved in the project or an expert in every task or topic.Â
A facilitator’s main task is to keep the discussions in the meeting in line with the agenda or topic outline. A facilitator doesn’t need to participate in the meeting, but they should ensure that the meeting flows from one topic to another without getting sidetracked. Meeting facilitators can go as far as interrupting the speaker whenever they’re veering from the meeting agenda.Â
5-Step Tried-and-Tested Super Scaling Meeting Cadence
The Super Scaling meeting structure is categorized into five, encouraging appointed facilitators to ensure topics are on point. For topics or issues that aren’t discussed, those can be set aside for one-on-one meetings or another scheduled meeting for people concerned.Â
Here is a five-step guide on how to prevent loss and increase productivity during your regular meetings:
1. Daily (five to 10 minutes)
The daily meetings are brief scrum meetings that prioritize alignment within various organizational teams. Alignment refers to different individuals and teams having one shared goal and vision.Â
Without alignment, your organization’s product or service may not provide the best customer experience. This is because teams work in silos, which means they work on their own, use their own data, and have their own goals. Overall, this creates gaps in your customer service and any internal processes.
Sample objective:
To get daily information on the previous day’s achievements, challenges, and updates.
Sample agenda:
- Biggest win from yesterday
- Priority for today
- Roadblocks
- Daily briefing and company announcements that will affect the day
Sample participants:
Operational staff who face customers daily (customer support officers, retail staff, etc.)
2. Weekly (60 to 90 minutes)
Meeting organizers use these meetings to discuss roles, expectations, and accountability. These meetings aim to drive accountability with projects and engage the team in problem-solving. These meetings must make progress towards your quarterly goals.
Accountability doesn’t refer to setting punitive rules that instill negativity within your organization. However, it pertains to defining goals, the company vision, values, expectations, roles, and responsibilities. This way, employees, from the rank-and-file members to C-suite executives, are led in the right direction when working towards the company goals.Â
Moreover, accountability also refers to empowering employees by stimulating autonomy. You want employees to prove that they’re capable of doing their jobs. We also discuss employee empowerment in our Super Scaling 5E Scale Engine, a five-principle guideline on how to operate your business from start to finish. Download the free playbook here.Â
Sample objective:
To define everyone’s roles and responsibilities, discuss metrics, and review customer feedback for the last week.
Sample agenda:
- Customer feedback
- Good/bad news
- Review top priorities/actions agreed in previous meetings that are due
- Company KPIs status and progress
- Individual KPIs and project updates
- Action items
Sample participants:
Department heads with upper management or project teams
3. Monthly (three to five hours)
Schedule your monthly meeting during your monthly team-get together if applicable. If not, you can allocate three to five hours monthly to cascade specific topics and issues within the entire organization.Â
Monthly meetings aim to touch base with everyone regarding the month’s progress. That way, everyone is on the same page of where they’re heading.
Sample objective:
To track progress and develop actions and priorities for the next month.
Sample agenda:
- Biggest wins from the month before
- Update on quarterly progress
- Feedback from the company
- Inter-department updates
- Direction and priorities for the next month
Sample participants:
Entire company
4. Quarterly (Half-day)
Quarterly meetings aim to discuss quarterly progress and plan actions to achieve quarterly goals and metrics. This meeting is essential because everyone has been updated on the steps to reach the company’s quarterly goals. Therefore, achieved KPIs are highly expected from team or project members.
Supervisors and project teams must collaborate, discuss issues and mitigate risks that may impede the company’s quarterly goals.
Sample objective:
Identify quarterly goals, map out specific strategies to reach these goals, and discuss overall company performance.
Sample agenda:
- Review performance for the quarter
- Review, discuss and brainstorm strategies and execution for the quarter
- Plan next steps and strategy for the next quarter
Sample participants:
Department heads with upper management or project teams
5. Yearly (Half-day)
Like quarterly meetings, yearly meetings may also be a part of your team-building activities. This is an excellent opportunity to get everyone on board and discuss a challenging and fulfilling year. In addition, these meetings will talk about the progress for the entire year and how to improve the following year.Â
Sample objective:
Track the year’s progress, modify strategies that didn’t work this year, and determine actionable steps to improve organizational performance for the following year.Â
Sample agenda:
- Biggest wins from the past year
- Review, discuss, brainstorm strategies for the past year
- Discuss and brainstorm strategies for the next year
- Plan next steps for the next quarter or next year
Sample participants:
Department heads with upper management or project teams
The Bottomline
Conducting regular meetings does more good than harm to your company, provided that topics are relevant, time is maximized, and attendees are engaged. Get buy-in from your attendees to ensure a positive meeting outcome. Use the Super Scaling meeting cadence to guide your organization and members and bring out their best potential.Â
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