Successful Meetings

Some meetings do really well with no structure, but I find the most successful meetings have the following qualities:

  1. A clear meeting organizer / person in charge
  2. An agenda
    • Agenda should be read by attendees in advance via the meting invite
    • Stick to the agenda
    • Organizer tables / parking-lots off-topic items
  3. Call in / video sharing / screen sharing available
  4. Someone with taking notes
    • Collaboratively, if necessary
    • Posts the notes to project resources
    • Creates action items from the notes
    • Follows up with an email, if necessary
  5. A clear and easy way out
    • Either before or during a meeting, any team member should be empowered to say something like “I don’t think I’m going to be useful here– do you mind if I duck out?”
      or “I’m not at all vested in the process here, just the result, so I’d prefer to duck out and just filled in afterwards.”