5 Rules for Effective Meetings

Meetings have been a big topic lately. It seems like everyone is trying to figure how to have less of them so that people have time to focus on the actual work.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen “Just survived another meeting that should have been an email…” come across my social media feed.

What is actually happening is that many people have no idea how to run an effective meeting so most meetings end up being a waste of time going through items and updates that should have been shared and reviewed ahead of time.

When you’re managing projects with clients, they will respect you more if you can maximize the use of their time and yours. In order to do this, you need effective project management systems that leverage meetings as one method to drive work forward but not the only method.

With that said, check-in meetings are crucial to ensuring everyone is on the same page as projects move forward. For a short project this may be just a kick-off call and then a call to talk through draft / final deliverables. For a longer project you might want to have one each week so that you have a regular touch point. This allows you to consolidate everything and address it at the meeting instead of sending several emails with questions throughout the week.