If experience is the best teacher, then we should all be experts at running meetings by now, right? We’ve spent more hours in meetings than we can count. We’ve organized meetings, created agendas, sent follow-ups, and then scheduled more meetings to discuss points from previous meetings.
It never ends.
Yet many people feel meetings are unproductive and take time away from actually getting work done.
The Business Backer, which finances small businesses, released this nine-step agenda that will help transform unproductive meetings into key drivers of efficiency.
For example, it’s clear that setting a meeting agenda will help ensure you talk about the most important points; but also setting a timeframe for each agenda item will help move the meeting along, and stating the goal of each item will help the group come up with actionable takeaways.
And at the end of a meeting, take a few minutes to review what went well and what didn’t so the next meeting runs even more smoothly.
To see all the tips and examples of how they can be put into action, check out the graphic.
Laura Forer is a freelance writer, email and content strategist, and crossword puzzle enthusiast. She’s an assistant editor at MarketingProfs, where she manages infographic submissions, among other things.