Look a week ahead: Towards the end of a week, I’ll start to take a look at what meetings I have the following week. For any that I’m responsible for, I’ll start pulling together some information for attendees. Sometimes this means updating the calendar invite with an agenda; other times this means starting a Google Doc for what we need to run through during the meeting, and I share it with edit rights for all attendees.
Use meeting goals: If the meeting has a bunch of people in it (like, more than two), especially if those people typically have full schedules, then I’ll write down goals for the meeting. Often, I’ll put those goals in the calendar item, and I’ll mention them at the beginning of the meeting. That means that if we get off-track during our time together, I can hit pause and recenter on the goals, asking folks to continue that other conversation afterward.
Find a plant: Once in awhile, it’s helpful to “seed” the meeting somehow. For example, in one meeting where there’s an “open questions” time and I want people to ask anything, I’ve asked a buddy to think up a super weird one to demonstrate to others that it’s a safe space.
Don’t surprise people in the meeting: Additionally, I do a lot of prep to make sure there’s no surprises in my meetings, at least none coming from me. This usually means that I let a handful of people know about a big announcement ahead of time (or had a tough conversation), usually one-on-one, so they wouldn’t be surprised in front of a lot of other people.
Gain consensus 1:1 beforehand, if possible: My goal with any decision-making meeting is to already have a sense, going in, of what issues people have, what their opinion is, and what they might need to come to agreement. I do as much legwork in advance as possible, so that the whole group is ready to make that decision more quickly in the room.
Few things bog down meetings more than an unclear process, or a lack of clarity about how people in attendance are supposed to participate. By sharing the goals of the meeting and a high-level overview of what we’re going to do there, I hope to make it clear what’s expected of folks in the room.
I cancel meetings if they’re unwarranted. I check-in every few months to see if a meeting’s goal still makes sense; I ask attendees how they’re feeling about the length of the meeting, how often it happens, and what we do during it. I iterate on meetings to make sure they’re still effective, or even necessary.