Running meetings that are worth the time

A one-hour meeting with six people costs six hours of working time. Most teams would question a six-hour task with no clear output, yet they book meetings like that every week. Cutting meetings for the sake of it rarely helps much. A better fix is to give each meeting a stated purpose, an agenda that does some work, clear roles and a written record of what was decided.

This guide covers each of those, plus timeboxing, written pre-reads and a worked example you can adapt.

Start with the purpose, and the type of meeting

Before you send an invitation, finish this sentence: “By the end of this meeting we will have…” If you cannot finish it, you may not need a meeting. An email, a shared document or a short call between two people might do the job.

Roger Schwarz, writing in Harvard Business Review, recommends stating the purpose of each agenda item: is it to share information, to get input on a decision, or to make a decision? Those are different activities and they need different set-ups.

For decision meetings, say at the start who makes the call. A group that does not know whether it is voting, advising or being informed will spend the meeting finding out.

Write an agenda that does some work

A list of nouns (“Q3 budget”, “office move”, “AOB”) tells people what will be mentioned, not what needs to happen. Schwarz suggests phrasing topics as questions. His example replaces “office space reallocation” with “Under what conditions should we reallocate office space?” A question tells everyone what a finished discussion looks like.

A useful agenda item has four parts:

• the question to answer
• the purpose: information, input or decision
• who leads it, so they can prepare (Schwarz recommends naming a lead for each item)
• the time allowed

Schwarz also advises including only topics that affect everyone in the room. If an item concerns two people, take it out and let them meet separately. Guidance on meeting roles from the University of Edinburgh adds that the agenda should be circulated before the meeting where possible, so people arrive ready.

Give people roles

The Edinburgh guidance describes three meeting roles, and suggests they can rotate:

• Chair: directs the meeting and keeps it to the agenda.
• Timekeeper: keeps the meeting within its time limits.
• Note taker: records decisions and sends them out afterwards.

It also advises against one person doing everything. A chair who is also taking notes and watching the clock cannot listen properly. In a small team, the chair can keep time, but someone else should take notes. If the most senior person always chairs, try rotating it. A junior chair often runs a tighter meeting because they stick to the agenda.

Timebox every item

A timebox is a fixed maximum length for an activity. Scrum, the agile framework, makes heavy use of them. The 2020 Scrum Guide sets the Daily Scrum at 15 minutes and caps Sprint Planning at eight hours for a one-month sprint, with shorter caps for shorter sprints. You do not need to use Scrum to borrow the idea.

Put a number of minutes against each agenda item and make the timekeeper responsible for calling time. When the time runs out, the chair makes one of three choices:

1. extend by a fixed amount, such as five minutes, if the group is close to a conclusion
2. park the item for a later meeting with a named owner who will prepare it better
3. take it offline to the two or three people who need to resolve it

Timeboxes also expose agendas that were never realistic. If every item overruns, the agenda was too long, not the people too slow.

Use written pre-reads

Many meetings spend their first half explaining the background. A short written pre-read moves that work out of the room.

Amazon is the best-known example. In his 2017 letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos wrote that Amazon does not use PowerPoint or other slide presentations. Instead, teams write “narratively structured six-page memos”, which attendees read silently at the start of each meeting “in a kind of ‘study hall'”. He added that a great memo can take a week or more to write, with rewrites, colleague reviews and a few days set aside before a final edit. Most weak memos, he argued, come from underestimating how long a good one takes.

Few teams need six pages. A lighter version works for most:

• one page, written in full sentences, that states the question, the options and a recommendation
• sent at least a day before, or read silently for the first five to ten minutes
• discussion starts from the document, not from a presentation of it

Silent reading at the start solves the common problem of people who did not read the pre-read. It also gives quieter people the same information at the same time as everyone else.

Record decisions and actions

The Edinburgh guidance advises emailing a list of decisions promptly after the meeting, including who is responsible for each task. Long minutes that record who said what are rarely read. A short record is more useful:

• Decisions: what was agreed, in one line each.
• Actions: what will be done, by whom and by when.
• Parked: items deferred, with an owner.

Read the actions aloud in the last two minutes so everyone hears their commitments. Start the next meeting by checking last time’s actions. A meeting that never checks its actions teaches people that agreeing to things costs nothing.

A worked example: the weekly trading meeting

An example (illustration only). A small online homeware shop holds a weekly trading meeting. Before: seven people, 60 minutes, an agenda reading “sales, marketing, stock, AOB”. Each person gives an update. Decisions drift into the following week.

After:

Updates that need no discussion go into the written summary. Two people who only attended for one item now read the notes instead. The meeting runs 30 minutes with five people, and every item ends with a line in the decision log.

Common mistakes, and when not to meet

• Status updates read aloud. If nobody needs to respond, write it down instead.
• No named decision-maker. The group debates for an hour and leaves without a decision.
• Inviting people “for visibility”. Send them the notes.
• Letting the meeting fill its slot. If you finish early, end early.
• Recurring meetings that outlive their purpose. Review your recurring meetings every quarter and cancel any whose purpose you cannot state.

Some meetings rightly have looser structures. A one-to-one belongs to the person who reports to you, a brainstorm needs room to wander, and a team social has no agenda at all. The structure here suits working meetings where something needs to be decided or moved forward. For those, purpose, agenda, roles, timeboxes, pre-reads and a decision log will do more than any new tool.