Essential Requirements for Effective Team Meetings

A clear purpose for the meeting. Team meeting time is expensive and often difficult to schedule, so it should be used to discuss and make decisions on issues that affect the whole team and need the whole team’s input. If the team spends too much time talking about issues that are not relevant to the whole team, members will disengage, and attendance rates will drop.

Timekeeping. ALWAYS begin a meeting at the proposed start time. Do not wait for tardy participants to arrive – if you do, your meeting attendees will not take the start time seriously. It is important to establish a ground rule that meetings start on time – always. It is a good idea to allocate a timekeeper for the meeting to make sure it is kept on track. This person should give 5-10-minute warnings before each time milestone, include the close of the meeting. Meetings usually take much longer than anticipated and reviewing your meeting process at the end of each meeting will help you to accurately estimated time required. Remember, items that require brainstorming or creative thinking need to be allocated sufficient time to conduct an effective process that will lead to good solutions.

Take accurate notes. It is good practice to allocate a scribe for your meetings. If input from the team is to be captured, it can be useful to do this by way of a flipchart or whiteboard. This will ensure that individuals know their input has been recorded accurately.

Keep an action plan. A meeting action plan is a living document that should be reviewed and updated at each meeting. The updated action plan must be completed immediately after the meeting and distributed to all team members as early as possible.

Seek agenda input from team members. If you want your team to be engaged in meetings, make sure they are given the opportunity to be involved in setting the agenda items. You will need a clear process for this, to ensure suggested items are relevant for discussion at a team level. If a suggestion is not accepted for inclusion in the agenda, you will need to be clear in your reasoning to the team member who suggested it. List agenda items as questions the team needs to answer. Usually, agenda items are random phrases such as “Office Relocation”. This can leave meeting participants wondering “What about office relocation?” When you list an item as a question to be answered, it makes the discussion point clearer, and pre-empts some advance thinking and preparation on the topic – for example “How can we ensure a smooth and stress-free relocation to head office at the end of this year?”

Identify who is responsible for leading each agenda item. Someone other than the team leader is often responsible for leading the discussion of a particular topic. This person may be providing context for the topic, explaining data, or may have responsibility for that area. Identifying this person next to the agenda item ensures that anyone who is responsible for leading part of the agenda knows it and prepares for it before the meeting.

Distribute the agenda in advance of the meeting. Make sure the agenda is circulated well in advance of the meeting to allow sufficient time for each team member to read background materials, prepare their initial thoughts, and schedule their day.

Clarify the timeframe and attendees. Be sure to provide both start and finish times for the meeting. If it is a large or laborious agenda, it is also wise to allocate times to each agenda items. A list of attendees is also essential, remembering to make it clear if there is a participant from outside the normal team – also ensure it is clear what the external person is there to do.

Stick to the agenda items and sequence. Be clear that only agenda items will be discussed during the meeting. If a team member wishes to raise something else, this should be “parked” until the final agenda item which should always be “any other business”. Team members must be clear that this agenda item may be cut short to keep to the meeting closing time, and items may not be discussed at length.

End the meeting with a review. If your team meets regularly, two questions form a simple continuous improvement process: “What did we do well?” and “What do we want to do differently for the next meeting?” Investing 5-10 minutes for this process will enable the team to improve performance, working relationships, and team member satisfaction and engagement. Here are some questions to consider when identifying what the team has done well and what it wants to do differently:

Was the agenda distributed in time for everyone to prepare?

How well did team members prepare for the meeting?
How well did we estimate the time needed for each agenda item?
How well did we allocate our time for decision-making and discussion?
How well did everyone stay on-topic?
How well did team members speak up when they thought someone was off-topic?

How effective was the process for each agenda item?

To ensure your team follows through on required improvements, include them in the action plan which will be reviewed at the beginning of the next meeting.

Ground Rules for Team Meetings

All voices heard: Too often in meetings the few loudest people dominate the conversation, crowding out the quieter voices.  By setting this ground rule, you’re inviting the quieter participants to speak up, and giving permission to others to call out people who have not been speaking up or dominating the discussions.
Be candid / speak your mind: Often in meetings, participants have thoughts that they’re on the fence about whether to say out loud, usually for fear of looking bad or offending someone. When you set a ground rule like this, you help tip people toward taking the risk of speaking up – which often leads to the most powerful breakthroughs in meetings.
Silence = agreement:  A cousin of ground rule number 2., this is a useful agreement because it explicitly eliminates the possibility of remaining quiet on an issue only to later tell everyone that you disagreed all along. By agreeing that remaining silent means that you agree, you compel people to speak up when they don’t.
Seek debate / be open-minded: When people debate, typically issues are more fully considered and diverse perspectives emerge.  Moreover, the people who disagree with the final decision will be more willing to commit to it when they’ve had a chance to voice their views. It can be useful to have people commit to be open-minded. Invite people to notice when they immediately reject an idea or have already made up their minds, and consciously choose to listen with a willingness to have their minds changed.
Debate the issue, not the person: Setting a clear ground rule that ensures people won’t be personally attacked for sharing their views will help the group engage in open, honest dialogue. It’s critical to make sure that you reinforce this ground rule, and immediately call out anyone who is pushing their opinions.
Stay focused: Having an explicit agreement to stay focused on the topic at hand makes it much easier to call people out when they’re going off on tangents. It can help to have a ‘parking lot’, a digital or physical space where you write down all the open issues and topics to be discussed later. 
Start and end on time: While it should be common courtesy, sometimes having people explicitly agree to start and end meetings on time makes it more likely to occur. It also lets people know that if they come late, they will miss part of the meeting since it will be starting on time.
Be present / no distractions: It can be useful to have everyone explicitly commit to be present in the meeting. Preferably ask for mobile phones to be silent during the meeting. It is helpful to begin a meeting with a mental clearing exercise. This reminds participants to leave the previous activities and resist thoughts of what’s after the meeting, but rather to be fully present to what is happening here and now.
Respect Confidentiality: Depending on the meeting, it may be helpful to agree to keep the content confidential. This can be especially important if you’re delving into more sensitive or personal topics, or having a meeting aimed at deepening trust and connection between a team by encouraging personal sharing. It’s useful to clearly distinguish what exactly are the boundaries of what will be kept confidential and what is okay to share with whom.