Mastering Meetings - The Definitive Guide to Amazing Meetings, Calls & Catch-Ups

I've had thousands of meetings over the years. And I've come to know a thing or two about what makes a good, and bad meeting.

Many people cite too many meetings, or the poor quality of meetings as one of the main workplace frustrations. It comes up often on employee satisfaction surveys. Too many meetings. Too many bad meetings. Too much time wasted.

Running a good meeting isn't just a case of turning up. Meetings can cripple productivity if allowed to spread uncontrollably, and can be a real productivity booster if done well. And you’ll know those people in you organisation that add value to meetings as well as those that don’t.

In this video series I'll talk about how you can run meetings that add real value, and don't disrupt everyone's valuable time. We'll talk about subjects like

• What a meeting is
• When meetings are, and are not needed
• Best practices in scheduling meetings
• Creating and following agendas
• Being an effective meeting chair as well as an attendee that adds value
• Taking actions, recording minutes & follow ups
• 
  

And we'll also dive into how you can make better use of your own time by understanding how you can optimise your own meeting attendance so that you avoid that back-to-back with meetings situation.

I'm a technologist, people manager, YouTuber, blogger, speaker & productivity enthusiast.

I love getting things done, but just as importantly I love keeping my team and colleagues happy, ensuring they not only deliver for our clients but grow both professionally and personally.

I've got over 20 years experience working for some of the biggest and highest-pressure enterprises in the world, including some of the most prestigious financial institutions there are. I've led teams small and large, remote, local and global and have experience providing agile IT solutions and services to non-technical business users, as well as IT professionals and development teams.

The dictionary definition of a meeting is - an assembly of people for a particular purpose, especially for formal discussion.

And that's generally right. People getting together to achieve a purpose. That's what meetings are *supposed* to be. But as we all know, many don't seem to achieve any purpose, or make work streams and projects LESS efficient.

In fact sometimes meetings can occur for all the wrong reasons. We talk about them here. As well as the correct reasons for having meetings or calls.

It has often been said that meetings have a particular cost.

And that's true. And it's also why you need to ensure that as many meetings as possible return some form of value to advance a project or work stream.

To host or attend a meeting you're effectively being charged. Let's explore the ways in which we all pay a price for meetings. 

There are many different types of meeting. And each type has many similarities but also a number of specific considerations that you should be aware of.

Let's dive into a few of them here. Do let me know in the comments or discussion pages if you have any other tips that I've not included here. I don't pretend to get this perfectly right so am always looking for killer tips that you have.

I've divided the main meeting types up into red / amber / green categories.

Thinking of meetings like this allows me to quantify the level of rigor or preparation that needs to be undertaken for each type. Each category can be treated slightly differently according to a number of factors such as audience, frequency, subject etc.

The following section details the aspects you should consider when scheduling your meeting.

There are a lot of variables that come into play as regards setting up a meeting in terms of when you should schedule them meeting for, and how long it should last. It's certainly not a case of simply picking a free slot in your calendar and firing off an invitation.

Ok so you've done all of the required due diligence and you're absolutely certain you need to call a meeting. Great. Well it's certainly not just a case of opening up your work calendar application and picking a slot that works for you.

In this video we take a look at the essential aspects of creating a great meeting invite that helps your attendees and makes sure they get the most from your meeting.

Welcome back to this video series on mastering your meetings. We've already seen that in terms of scheduling a meeting, it's not just a case of finding a slot that suits you, there's a lot more to it than that.

And now you've found the perfect time slot for your meeting, what else can you do to ensure that you're respecting your audience and helping to build a reputation as someone that schedules meetings only when necessary.

Sometimes you'll be inviting people to your meeting that work for another company. For example a partner or a vendor.

These need some extra considerations.

Every time you call a meeting, you're giving yourself a chance to be judged on the quality of your interaction, the level of respect you're showing for your audience's time, and the attention to detail you're applying to make the cost of the meeting less for your audience.

So you've scheduled a meeting and it's all good. Now what? You might have picked the perfect set of attendees, scheduled a really good slot and designed an effective meeting invitation, but your responsibilities are only just beginning.

As meeting chairperson it's your job to start the meeting off well. Kicking off a call effectively can make the difference between a great meeting and one that's a waste of time.

A positive start allows the meeting chairperson to set the scene and underline their authority for the call. Here are some of the most important aspects for starting your meeting well.

Scheduling and starting a meeting is just the beginning. Now the chairperson has to steer the ship through the minefield that is the meeting agenda. You've got to ensure the agenda gets addressed, that everyone has a voice, and that people don't end up destroying their professional relationships.

It's not an easy thing to do. And can sometimes be extremely difficult. Here are some tips that I find help.

As we spoke about earlier, the meeting agenda is a critical part of the meeting process. An agenda, published in advance, greatly improves the efficiency of the meeting and is essential for those meetings that really need to achieve consensus on important decisions, or that are time sensitive or senior management focused.

Ok so that went well right? A solid meeting, good progress, no major arguments, everything covered in the time that you had. Superb.

And relax. Well not quite. As a meeting organiser you still have an important job - and that's the follow up email or minutes of the meeting.

As we are on the subject of meetings - I thought I'd also provide some tips on how to be known as a great meeting attender.

There are a few rules that you can easily follow to help build that reputation as someone who can be relied upon to add value to meetings. This might lead to an increase in the number of meetings you get invited to, but it's always positive to be seen as a go-to person so don't panic.

Thanks for watching this video series on mastering meetings.

As you can see there's a lot to it. I recall the early days of my career when I'd just pick a slot and hit send.

I even remember the first meeting I ever called - I sat down with a couple of people and basically didn't know why I was there never mind what to say. That one ended with them telling me "you really should take some time to prepare for these".

Since then I've had thousands of meetings and calls and I think I've got it to a much slicker level.

Hopefully this course will be useful for you. We've seen how you can manage meeting preparation according to the importance level of the meeting, as well as the important considerations regarding meeting scheduling such as timing, constructing an invitation and the gotchas to avoid.