Running a meeting people do not resent

Almost everyone complains about meetings and almost nobody is taught to run one, which is a straightforward explanation for the state of them.

Before it exists

The question that removes most bad meetings.

What decision needs to be made, and by whom?

If the answer is "none — this is an update", it is a document.

If only two people need to decide, it is a conversation.

If the decision cannot be made because information is missing, it should be postponed until it is not.

And the meeting that exists because it is in the calendar every week should be cancelled at least once, to see whether anything breaks.

The agenda

Which should be more than a list of topics.

Each item stated as a question or a decision, with the name of whoever owns it.

Time allocated per item.

Whether the item is for decision, discussion or information, stated explicitly.

Any pre-reading circulated with enough notice to be read.

And the hardest item early, when attention is highest, rather than last when it is rushed.

Who is there

The most common excess.

The people who decide, the people whose input is needed, and nobody else.

Which means being willing to tell someone they need not attend, and being willing to decline an invitation.

Larger meetings produce less discussion per person and slower decisions, which is measurable and predictable.

And people who are informed rather than involved can be sent the notes.

Opening

The first two minutes.

State the purpose and what a successful meeting looks like.

State the finish time and commit to it.

State the format: when questions come, how decisions get made.

And where the group is unfamiliar, brief introductions with a purpose — role and stake in the decision — rather than open-ended ones.

Managing the discussion

The active part.

Notice who has not spoken, and invite them by name.

Interrupt people who have spoken at length, which is uncomfortable and is the job.

Name what is happening when it drifts: "we are on a different question — do we want to be?"

Park tangents visibly, in a list, so people can let go of them.

Summarise periodically, which keeps everyone in the same conversation.

And ask for the objections explicitly, since silence is not agreement.

The dominant speaker

A recurring problem.

Set expectations at the start about time per contribution.

Use a direct intervention: "let me hold that and come to people who have not spoken."

Ask others by name immediately after.

Take the conversation offline where it is a two-person disagreement.

And speak to them privately afterwards where it is persistent, since the pattern will not change in the meeting.

Making decisions

The part that is frequently skipped.

State the decision explicitly before moving on: "we are doing X."

Name who owns it and by when.

Say how the decision was made — consensus, the chair's call, a vote — since ambiguity here causes the decision to be relitigated.

Check for disagreement one final time, and record it if it exists.

And distinguish between a decision and a discussion that felt conclusive, which is the most common way meetings produce nothing.

Closing

The last three minutes, reserved.

Read back the decisions and the actions with owners and dates.

Confirm the next meeting is necessary, or that it is not.

Finish on time or early.

And send the notes the same day, short, actions first, since notes sent a week later change nothing.

Online meetings

Where all of this is harder.

More explicit turn-taking, since the natural cues are absent.

Invite by name rather than waiting for volunteers.

Use the chat deliberately — for questions, for a round of written input — which gets contributions from people who will not interrupt.

Shorter than in person, with breaks in anything long.

And a written round before discussion, which is one of the most effective interventions available and works better online than in a room.

Standing meetings

The ones that outlive their purpose.

Review them periodically: does this still need to exist, at this frequency, with these people?

Shorten by default — a thirty-minute meeting fills thirty minutes and a sixty-minute one fills sixty.

Cancel when there is no agenda, which requires the agenda to be circulated in advance.

And ask the attendees once a year whether it is worth their time, which produces honest answers if you have made it safe to give them.