How to run a more effective meeting

Recently I came across this webpage: How Much Is “The Way We’ve Always Done It” Costing You?.  In this page, there is a cost calculator to determine how much time and money you and your team waste on inconsistent processes, status meetings, and tedious, manual work. 
You may access the cost calculator here:  https://www.smartsheet.com/status-quo-cost-calculator

Immediately, I keyed in the information to the best of my knowledge and was so amazed to see the time I spent in each of those areas: work processes, status meetings, manual work.

Here is a summary of 57Network’s result.

Cost of unproductive status meetings is approximately RM200,000.  Never have I imagined the cost we spent for all these meetings.

On the other hand, I am happy to see these figures because we have saved at least 70% of these amounts through the digitalisation efforts that we have put in in the past few years.  

Today, we have streamlined our work processes, conducted effective status meetings and automated manual works as much as we can.

Let’s focus on the Status Meetings and how to conduct more effective meetings.

Status meetings are very important to every team, every department, every organisation.  It is a time where teams are aligned and where visions and missions are reinforced.  But, how many times have you dreaded attending a meeting?

Meetings where…

1. Discussion matters are repeated week after week without any conclusion
2. Most people forgot what was discussed in last meeting and no action was taken on matters discussed
3. Each person took time to report on their work progress on top of the stack of written reports that they have prepared for the meeting (by the way, who read those reports?)
4. Listening to matters that is unrelated to you whereby your heart is eager to get all your pending tasks done before it gets overdue
   

For those who take the Status Meetings to heart, not to forget the preparation they have to make prior to the meetings: preparing progress reports.  Are you still preparing a powerpoint presentation for every status meeting?

How can we make our Status Meetings more effective?  Firstly, we have to understand the key elements of Status Meetings:

1. What is the objective of the meeting? 
2. Who will lead the meeting?
3. Who should attend the meeting?
4. How to help meeting attendees be well prepared for the meeting?
5. What is the meeting agenda?
6. Who is accountable for each agenda?
7. What happened after the meeting?

Smartsheet Meeting Management Template set is a good way to kickstart your Meeting Management process: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/publish?EQBCT=959c434a3dcc4f968a98941097137008

These items in the Meeting Management Template set address the 7 key elements of a Status Meeting as listed above:

1. Meeting Agenda Portals - Where meeting attendees will know what to expect and what to prepare for the meeting to enable the meeting to be carried out meaningfully and effectively.
2. Meeting Agenda Sheet - Where team members can suggest items for discussion so the Meeting Chairperson can allocate sufficient time and to prioritise urgent matters for discussion.
3. Meeting Follow Up Sheet - Automate reminders and update requests so your team can be reminded and update on the follow up tasks.

We can empower your team to customise the Meeting Management Template set to fit your team’s requirement.  Are you ready to organise your next effective Team Meeting?

Here is an article for additional reading: 8 ways to make your meetings less costly, more productive

Smartsheet is a dynamic workspace that empowers teams to manage projects, automate workflows, and rapidly build new solutions—using no-code tools they love, and backed by the security IT needs.  Smartsheet is more than a Request Management tool.

With 57Network’s customised training modules, your team will be unleashed to achieve more with Smartsheet.
We also provide Solution Building services to speed up your transformation journey.

Wish to understand how we can empower your team for greater achievement?

Connect with us today