Meetings can easily get hijacked by office bores who go off at a tangent and drag on forever, or include people who don’t need to be there. The result is that 25-50% of meeting time is wasted. The solution to this is to ensure that meetings are well-prepared and focused on their objectives. This starts with the organiser, who needs to consider why they are holding a meeting in the first place. Can the issue be resolved via a quick chat, email or report instead?
It is also important to set clear objectives before the meeting, and share them with all attendees. This helps to focus the discussion and avoid sidebar conversations. It is also a good idea to assign a member of the team to take notes – this is one way to keep everyone engaged and will help when it comes to taking action. To find the ideal environment, consider Meeting Rooms Exeter from a site like https://exeter.nettl.com/meeting-rooms/
Business meetings are a perfect opportunity to use visuals in the form of images, graphs and tables to add clarity. If possible, try to limit the number of slides – people don’t want to read a lot of text. If the agenda has a lot of items, consider allowing participants to respond with yes/no/undecided to specific questions – this will help to narrow down topics and save time.
When a meeting ends, make sure all relevant notes and decisions are recorded in the form of an action plan or decision log. Then assign responsibility for implementing changes, or for a task that has not been agreed upon, and record the date when the action will be completed. This will avoid hours of follow up work for secretarial staff and help to keep meetings on track.