Agenda: All good meetings have a clear agenda, circulated in advance. Not only does this help your team understand the flow of the session, it’s important to guide prep - and preparation is key to ensuring your meeting actually achieves its stated purpose.
For example, if you run an operational management meeting with the goal of solving challenges cross-functionally, getting people to share an overview of their problems, progress and plans before the session allows people to build context async. That way, when you’re in the room, you can focus on resolving issues, not catching people up on the status quo.
An agenda also shouldn’t just be a list of items. It should be clear what you want to achieve by the end of the meeting. When you kick things off, reminding people of your end goal will help things stay on track.
Invite list: It’s super important to be clear about who actually needs to be there - is this a whole team thing, or could you get further, faster with a smaller group?
This can get a little awkward - but inviting people who won’t actually help you achieve your stated goal in order to flatter their ego can be distracting and disruptive (not to mention the fact that it will be a waste of their time.)
Avoid quietly removing people from an invite and just be transparent about why you want to give them the time back. Be open to challenge - and clear about alternative ways to keep them up to date with any need to know information. Remember, you can always keep the core meeting group small and invite ‘guests’ when you need broader input.
Roles and responsibilities: Yes, it’s boring - but someone needs to lead the meeting, keep track of time and be responsible for following up with a clear record of decisions and actions - and they don’t all have to be you. In fact, having rotating roles can help everyone build good meeting habits and confidence - as long as you are all clear on expectations.
Length: This one is pretty simple. Make your meeting only as long as it needs to be. If it’s a long one, ensure you plan for breaks - and always start and finish on time to stop a calendar domino effect.