A poorly run meeting sucks the energy from the room. Too many meetings are unfocused, meandering and inefficient. With the following tips, meetings can move work forward instead of wasting time. Here’s how to plan your meetings for success:
Follow the PAL principle. Every meeting should have a clear Purpose, Agenda and Limits.
- Provide the meeting Purpose in advance and declare the reason for the meeting. It should also include the desired outcomes of the meeting. “By the end of this meeting, we will have ___________.” This might be “a decision” or “agreement on” or solved this problem.” The more tangible, the better. If you can’t do this, maybe you don’t need the meeting.
- Post an Agenda in advance and use this as a roadmap for the meeting. This is a sequence of topics and names of those who may be presenting or leading the discussions.
- Provide each Agenda topic a time Limit. This can get tricky, because estimating how long we should discuss a topic is just a guess. A common mistake is to FILL the entire hour with topics (such as planning four 15-minute topics to fill the hour). This is a mistake. If one agenda topic runs long, the meeting will run long, or downstream topics will get squeezed or be dropped entirely from the meeting!
A better way to deal with this uncertainty is to set aside a “bank” of time for when topics inevitably run long. For an hour-long meeting, set aside 15-20 minutes (let’s call this buffer time). Then set agenda limits for the topics. For example, schedule four 10-minute topics and then add 20 minutes of “buffer time” to prepare for topics that run long. What you’ll experience is that some topics will be complete in 10 minutes and others will need more time. Using this method, meeting attendees can use the buffer time when the topic calls for it. A meeting leader or facilitator can point out “this is a good discussion that we can continue, but know that we’re using buffer time for it.”
What happens if there’s buffer time left over? My goodness, we get time back in our lives! Maybe we even have a chance at getting to the next meeting on time!
This time limit planning tactic sets up meetings for success, preparing for the uncertainty that some topics just may need more discussion time than allotted.
The PAL method gives a leader/facilitator real tools to guide the meeting. When leading your meeting, if the group begins to meander, turn to your “PAL” for help. Is the discussion still relating to the Purpose? If not, you have the right to interrupt and return to the stated topic. Are you moving off the Agenda? Maybe the off-agenda topic should be moved to another forum. Is someone dominating the discussion? Point out the time Limits you’re under and move the conversation along.
Think this could work for your meetings? Would love to have your thoughts.
To learn how we apply this method to planning and running projects, contact us today.
