Online meetings have swamped our lives. In the U.S. alone, about 55 million meetings take place every week. Unfortunately, many meetings are not effective. According to surveys, employees consider 71% of gatherings unproductive, and the annual loss from ineffective meetings is $37 billion. Is there a remedy for this? Proper preparation for an online meeting can increase its effectiveness and bring the results everyone expects from it.
Meet Agenda!
Everything comes out better if it is planned. Spontaneity can certainly be romantic and fun, but not in the business world. In such cases, an agenda comes to the rescue. Everyone has heard the word, but not everyone gets it right. An agenda meeting gives all participants the information they need to engage in the meeting, helps them fully understand the goals of the gathering, and makes the time spent in sync as efficient as possible.
A Guide For Designing an Agenda for an Effective Meeting
Writing an agenda will take you little time but will help increase the meeting’s efficiency. Since meetings come in all different types, you can create agenda templates, and all you have to do is fill them out with the necessary information before sending them out. So, let’s get started with our step-by-step instructions.
Set a Meeting Objective
This first step allows you to figure out if you need to gather at all. The meeting goal is what you need to accomplish during the communication. It includes the topics to be discussed and the decisions to be made.
Identify the Meeting Participants
Limiting the number of participants is necessary for a productive meeting. You don’t have to call the entire team. Include team members with the expertise and knowledge to make the necessary decisions to achieve the meeting objective.
At the end of the meeting, you simply send the results of your discussion to those team members who need to be aware of the situation and those who may be affected but do not need to be present.
Define Roles and Responsibilities
Before the meeting, it is essential to define the role of each participant and clarify what needs to be prepared and who is responsible for it.
Specify Time and Place of Meeting
When scheduling a meeting with remote employees who may be in any time zone, you must specify their local time and date of the meeting. This will help avoid ridiculous situations with delays. You should also inform the app you will be using. It could be Zoom, Whoosh, Google Meet, or another platform. This is necessary so that the employee can install the appropriate software on their device in advance and sign in.
Prepare a Meeting Plan
Preparing a meeting plan serves two purposes: to control meeting time and to give participants information about what they should prepare to accomplish the meeting objectives. The meeting plan should be provided to participants at least 24 hours before the meeting.
So, what to include in the meeting plan? The purpose of the meeting; The participants in the discussion and their roles; Topics and decisions you need to make during the session; Duration and time for each case; Any supporting materials; Extra minutes for discussion.
The last point is crucial as it’s vital to discuss the decision and ensure everyone is on the same page.
Set Meeting Duration
Determining the time frame of the meeting is key to keeping participants focused. Zoom fatigue is not fiction; you don’t want to turn your colleagues into exhausted and angry creatures after just one encounter. It is believed that the ideal time for a meeting, when all employees remain as productive and involved as possible, is 25-30 minutes. Try to squeeze in this timeline.
Send Invitations and Agenda
You must invite participants to the meeting at least 24 hours in advance. If the gathering requires preparation, you must allocate more time. We also suggest setting up notifications reminding attendees about the appointment 15 minutes before it starts with duplicated information about the app or the link to the online conference.
Tips for Holding an Effective Meeting
Your agenda will help each participant prepare and become a roadmap for your meeting. That’s why you should choose a person to moderate the session. They should keep track of time and guide the speakers so that the discussion does not drag on and leads to the participants’ irritation. After all, no one likes empty chatter, right?
We are used to always attending meetings with notepads. Still, many modern video conferencing apps allow users to record calls, and some (Whoosh, for example) use AI to create a brief with the most important aspects of the meeting.
How to End the Meeting?
Every meeting should end with each participant knowing their next step. Assigning tasks is the best way to determine the specific action. It’s best to do this in real-time during the meeting and immediately enter the appropriate assignments into the task manager.
We hope our detailed guidelines will assist you in creating agendas leading to effective meetings.
