Top five tips to make meetings productive
Research has documented how unproductive we are at work as we balance our To-Do List with excessive emails, pointless meetings, and constant interruptions. Excessive Zoom meetings can lead to Zoom Fatigue - a new concept describing the tiredness, worry, or burnout occurring from overutilizing virtual conferencing platforms, such as Zoom, Google Meets, or Microsoft Teams. One way employers can reduce their employees’ Zoom Fatigue is to ensure their meetings are productive instead of pointless. Here are our top five tips to help keep your team’s meetings productive.
Make Sure The Meeting Is Necessary
Ask yourself if the meeting is necessary. Can you disseminate the information you plan to share during the meeting through another platform, such as email or project management software? Sometimes just checking in with your team members via these platforms will be enough. You can also have optional office hours where those with questions can come to the video call and ask questions. Embrace asynchronous collaboration by creating a canvas to allow your team members to contribute when they have time.
Set A Clear Objective And Agenda For The Meeting
Before sending the meeting invite, outline what you want to discuss, meeting goals, action items you need your team members to complete, and what, if anything, your team members should bring to the meeting. Include this information in the meeting invite, alongside the time, date, location, and participant list. If you want specific updates from project managers, make sure to include this in the agenda to allow team members to prepare for the meeting properly.
Keep A Strict Time Limit
Many calendar apps and video conferencing software allow you to list how long the meeting will last; ensure you allow enough time for discussion. An agenda can help determine how long your session needs to be. Having set time limits for project updates can help ensure you stay within the allotted meeting length. Start your meeting on time, and remind your team members to come a few minutes early so you can start on time.
Ensure Everyone Understands The Action Items
Before your meeting ends, ensure your team fully understands what they need to complete and who they can ask in case of later questions. Post your meeting minutes in an accessible place for your team, so they can refer to them as needed.
Work With The Right Tools
Having everyone look at the same document or program during the meeting can make understanding the action items and tasks at hand so much easier. Allo, a free-form collaborative documentation software, uses canvases with a structured system to help you plan, conduct, and organize your meetings. The canvases allow users to tag each other and insert any external sources, such as text, images, links, videos, and more. Planning and conducting meetings through Allo is easy and efficient.
