STOP useless work meetings: organise effective meetings

Work meetings are the rhythm of our professional lives.

And with good reason! They are essential to the smooth running of the company's activities and project management.

Yet many people regard most meetings as pointless and a waste of time. For example, an IFOP survey commissioned by Wisembly (a platform specialising in event management) found that 92% of managers regularly take part in meetings at work. meetings at work, but only 12% of them consider them to be really productive and profitable.

So what are the keys to a successful team meeting? What are the best practices to put in place to make them more meaningful?

From sound advice to clever software, find out how to organise and run an effective team meeting.

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What is a working meeting?

The purpose of a business meeting

A working meeting consists of bringing together different participants with the aim of achieving certain predefined objectives.

However, the term "meeting" implies the presence of at least three people. If only two people are present, it is more likely to be called an interview or a one-to-one meeting.

Furthermore, a working meeting is only necessary when there is a need to exchange ideas, when a group dynamic is required. Except in exceptional cases, avoid organising a meeting with the aim of passing on information "downwards". In that case, a simple e-mail may suffice.

Hence the importance of thinking carefully about the objectives of your meeting beforehand. It may seem obvious, but always ask yourself "What exactly do I want to get my staff together for? Without thinking this through beforehand, you run the risk of wasting a lot of everyone's time.

The objectives of the meeting can be of different kinds:

• draw up an action plan
• reorganise a department
• reorganise working methods
• welcoming a new employee
• coordinating projects
• negotiate, etc.

Once your objective has been clearly defined, you will be in a better position to understand the direction and type of your working meeting.

The different types of working meeting

The content of the meeting determines its type. The most common types include

• departmental or review meetings: these are recurrent and are used to review current projects as a team. It encourages exchanges between participants;
  
• Information meetings: less participative than the previous one, they are held when management needs to communicate on really important issues (new organisation, change of direction, takeover, etc.). Before organising a briefing, always ask yourself whether the information can be conveyed in another way, by e-mail for example;
  
• crisis or problem-solving meetings: these are used to unblock a complicated situation, settle conflicts, resolve communication problems, etc. ;
  
• brainstorming: a creative meeting par excellence, it leads to the generation of new ideas and proposals to develop your business.

Armed with all this advice, you now have the keys to proposing only really relevant working meetings. Now it's time to get to the heart of the matter, and ask yourself how to prepare your meeting.

How do you prepare for a business meeting?

Because a successful meeting is a well-prepared meeting, take the time to follow these steps:

Select the right participants

There's nothing more frustrating than the feeling that you've wasted time with a business meeting that you didn't have to attend.

That's why you need to select your participants carefully. Always ask yourself the following question: which members of staff will be essential to achieving the objective defined in advance?

Make sure that you get confirmation of attendance from everyone well in advance. This will enable you to anticipate any absences and reorganise accordingly.

Plan the meeting efficiently

Next comes the planning stage.

Find a date that suits everyone. As far as possible, avoid meetings between 2pm and 4pm: because of digestion, the brain is much less receptive in this time slot.

Do you find it difficult to plan your meetings efficiently? Consider the many software applications that make the task easier. With Doodle, for example, you can propose several slots for which each participant indicates whether or not he or she is available. All you have to do is select the date that suits everyone.

Choose a suitable venue

In the same way as you chose a suitable time slot, make sure you select an appropriate meeting venue. It should offer sufficient capacity for all participants.

We also recommend that you avoid blind rooms, as artificial light is much more tiring for the brain than daylight.

Finally, we should mention that, as a result of changes in the way we work, it is now possible to hold meetings when not all the participants are "physically" present. In fact, with a little preparation, you can envisage the videoconferencing option. To do this, use a suitable tool. Skype, for example, has been a safe bet for years. With its Skype for business version, you can take the videoconferencing experience a step further: benefit from screen and document sharing options, and the ability to host up to 250 participants per conference.

Prepare your working documents and materials

Finally, take the time to carefully prepare your working documents. These are what will make the meeting more dynamic and effective.

If you'd like to use more effective working aids, turn to presentation software. Prezi, for example, offers dynamic models (created by designers) that will make your presentations more captivating. What's more, it allows several team members to create and work together, sharing and editing their creations at the same time.

Draw up a meeting plan

Organising an efficient and smooth working meeting necessarily involves drawing up a plan. This is similar to a meeting preparation sheet.

We suggest you construct it as follows:

• Highlight your agenda on your document, i.e. the list of subjects to be dealt with, discussed, voted on, etc. It should lead to the achievement of the objectives of the meeting. It should lead to the achievement of the objectives defined in advance;
  
• prioritise the subjects to be discussed ;
  
• allocate a specific amount of time to each phase. In this way, you'll avoid getting bogged down on certain points, and therefore running out of time to deal with the next ones;
  
• Consider including extra time at the end of the meeting for questions;
  
• where appropriate, include the names of the participants in your document, as well as the date and place of the meeting.

Involve the participants

At this stage in the preparation of your meeting, and if you deem it necessary, call on certain participants to work on the topics to be discussed.

To do this, send them your agenda, and indicate the subjects on which you would like them to take the lead in the meeting.

👉 Wisembly, for example, currently helps over 300,000 users to manage and run their hybrid virtual and face-to-face events: meetings, seminars, webinars, etc. Involve your participants with intelligent, customised event management features:

• create virtual rooms and group your participants by theme,
• a brainstorming module to encourage discussion, with the added bonus of organising ideas by category,
• a live chat system during the meeting to encourage anonymous or identified exchanges (moderate, sort and display the most relevant messages), and much more!

In addition, always check beforehand the availability and functionality of the equipment you intend to use (pens, flipchart paper, extension lead, etc.). Who hasn't lost precious time because a video projector wouldn't turn on?

Finally, if you know that the meeting is likely to drag on for a long time, a snack or bottles of water are always appreciated.

So, you've taken the time to organise this business meeting. Now it's time to look at how it's run.

How do you chair a business meeting?

Chairing a business meeting requires a certain amount of good practice. To ensure total success, follow our advice:

Introduce the meeting properly

It's all about the introduction. To do this properly, you need to :

• Start on time;
  
• review the agenda and objectives of the meeting;
  
• briefly review the role of each participant, and remind everyone of the rules and time limits for your meeting;
  
• if necessary, appoint a secretary to take notes (with a view to drawing up minutes), or even to manage time.

Note that the use of certain software packages facilitates the work of the secretary, or the person in charge of note-taking in general. The aim? To keep him or her better connected to the meeting.

Take Beenote, for example, a tool that allows you to enter your notes, decisions and tasks live. These will automatically be added to the minutes. Beenote also provides timers to help you manage your time better, so that you don't run over any of the subjects on your agenda.

Make sure the meeting runs smoothly

Has your business meeting started? As the organiser, it's up to you to ensure that it runs smoothly, by following these few tips:

• Make sure that the meeting is moving in the right direction. To achieve this, make sure that the agenda is respected, by guiding the discussions in the right direction;
  
• make sure that the floor is fairly distributed, and encourage all participants to speak;
  
• anticipate and defuse conflicts;
  
• make good use of working documents and facilitation tools;
  
• summarise and regularly ensure that the information and understanding of the issues are correctly understood by all those present;
  
• if you haven't delegated this role, make sure you keep to the timetable.

If all this seems complex, don't worry: there are tools to help you run your meeting as smoothly as possible. One such tool is iBabs, the all-in-one software package that offers a host of functions to help your meeting run smoothly. You can use a dashboard to manage your information and documents live, including your agenda. An alarm and notification system reminds you of the documents you need to sign or send during the meeting. And you can even edit your files in real time.

Conclude the meeting

Is it time to end your team meeting?

Conclude it by summarising the discussions and the decisions taken.

Make sure you always send a report to the meeting participants afterwards: this is based on your notes or those taken by your secretary, and summarises the progress and conclusions.

Finally, if necessary, take some time to plan the next meeting, and even determine its objective and the actions to be taken. Note, however, that for recurring meetings, you can automate the process even further. Take Aster, for example, which is designed to monitor recurring meetings. To do this, the tool takes care of reminding participants of the tasks assigned to them, synchronising them in Planner and preparing the next session by taking up the subjects to be dealt with.

See all software Project Management

Method and tools for a successful meeting

As we have seen, it is entirely possible to "re-enchant" the working meeting, to stop seeing it as a waste of time.

But to ensure that you add real value to your meeting, there's no secret: prepare it with rigour and method!

And don't forget to use specific software: it will help you make a success of your meeting, and make it a much more collaborative and dynamic exercise. Your staff will thank you!

How do you plan to organise your next business meeting?