First Aid for Painful Meetings

As the hour wore on, Geoff began to wonder why this meeting, too, had gone so wrong. Here they were, plowing over well-plowed ground yet again. With just ten minutes left in the hour, they still hadn't started talking about the Release Team's findings. Frustration was rising. Geoff wondered if perhaps this team just couldn't work together.

Have you ever been here?

To help your team achieve its potential, make meeting agendas crisp and focused. A solid, agreed-upon agenda gives your team a better chance to prepare, to stay on track and to maintain focus. Here are eight tips for improving agendas and how you manage them.

Circulate a draft agenda in advance

Draft an agenda and circulate it in advance. Because you probably aren't omniscient, ask attendees for their contributions. This builds ownership of the agenda by the team. Allocate time for each item. If you don't, how will you know if you're running late? Include a Draft "Not-Agenda" — topics that are off limits for this meeting.

First agenda item: review the agenda

Reviewing the agenda smokes out confusion, and helps solidify consensus about the agenda. With everyone on board, it's easier to manage digressions.

Allocate time for puzzles

Usually, we're reluctant to admit that we don't know everything. Time for puzzles gives people permission to surface confusions early, and helps avoid major problems later.

Limit in-meeting handouts

Circulating handouts during meetings wastes time. Often we have too much to read, and too little chance to digest it. Limit each handout to one side of one page. Circulate longer reports in advance by email.

No routine announcements

To help your team
achieve its potential,
make meeting agendas
crisp and focused

Shift routine FYI's, such as status reports, to prior-to-the-meeting email. Reserve meeting time for delicate or complex announcements, and for issues that require discussion.

Designate Someone as a Digression Detector

The Designated Digression Detector (DDD) signals a possible digression in a fun or humorous way — a bicycle horn, a New Year's noisemaker, whatever. On the signal, the meeting stops to decide if a digression has occurred, and whether to adjust the agenda, or make a note for a future meeting, or adjourn until further information is available.

Look in the rear-view mirror

Circulate the as-executed agenda as part of the minutes. By comparing the as-executed agenda to the pre-meeting agenda, you might be able to find ways to improve your agenda-creation process.

Learn from digressions

Use the notes of the DDD to develop future draft agendas. If an item repeatedly appears in the Digressions List, consider doing something proactive — apparently the team really wants to discuss the topic. That's valuable information, even if a discussion of the topic itself isn't really appropriate.

For more on agendas, see "An Agenda for Agendas," Point Lookout for May 25, 2005; and "Have a Program, Not Just an Agenda," Point Lookout for May 9, 2007.  Top    Next Issue

Do you spend your days scurrying from meeting to meeting? Do you ever wonder if all these meetings are really necessary? (They aren't) Or whether there isn't some better way to get this work done? (There is) Read 101 Tips for Effective Meetings to learn how to make meetings much more productive and less stressful — and a lot more rare. Order Now!

There are lots of good references on running meetings and forming agendas, especially Michael Doyle and David Straus, How to Make Meetings Work: The new interaction method, Berkley Books, 1993. Order from Amazon.com.

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

What Measurements Work Well?

To manage well, we need to know where we are, where we would like to be, and what we need to do to get there. Measurement can help us achieve our goals, by telling us where we are and how much progress we're making. But some things aren't measurable, and some measurement methods yield misleading results. How can we use measurement effectively?

How to Reject Expert Opinion: I

When groups of decision makers confront complex problems, they sometimes choose not to consult experts or to reject their advice. How do groups come to make these choices?

The Tyranny of Singular Nouns

When groups try to reach decisions, and the issue in question has a name that suggests a unitary concept, such as "policy," they sometimes collectively assume that they're required to find a one-size-fits-all solution. This assumption leads to poor decisions when one-size-fits-all isn't actually required.

Ending Sidebars

We say that a sidebar is underway in a meeting when two or more meeting participants converse without having been recognized by the chair. Sidebars can be helpful, but they can also be disruptive. How can we end sidebars quickly and politely?

Risk Creep: II

When risk events occur, and they're of a kind we never considered before, it's possible that we've somehow invited those risks without realizing we have. This is one way for risk to creep into our efforts. Here's Part II of an exploration of risk creep.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Effective Meetings for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming December 15: Do My Job

A popular guideline in modern workplaces is "do your job." The idea is that if we all do our jobs, success is most likely. But some supervisors demand that subordinates do their own jobs, plus the jobs of their supervisors. It rarely works out well. Available here and by RSS on December 15.

And on December 22: Internal Audits Without Pain

If adhering to established procedures is part of your job, you probably experience occasional audits. You can manage the pain of the experience by regarding audit preparation as part of the job. Because it is. Here are some tips for navigating audits. Available here and by RSS on December 22.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenEQuetChPjwYBDxmgner@ChacxXTxBssoFmfDfMugoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   
• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   

Bullet Points: Mastery or Madness?

Decision makers in modern organizations commonly demand briefings in the form of bullet points or a series of series of bullet points. But this form of presentation has limited value for complex decisions. We need something more. We actually need to think. Briefers who combine the bullet-point format with a variety of persuasion techniques can mislead decision makers, guiding them into making poor decisions. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 24, 2020, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   
• A recording of a program presented June 24, 2020, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.