Meetings We Can Be Thankful For
Meetings Your Team Will Thank You For
Meetings are the cornerstone of organizations. We need them to spark the conversations that help us collaborate, innovate and thrive. We’ve all been a part of great meetings that energized us and gave us the input we needed to move our projects and ideas forward. In this spirit, we’ve compiled the top six tips to organizing and leading meetings that your colleagues will thank you for!
1. Start on time and end on time (whenever possible)—Being punctual is one way we show respect for our colleagues’ time. It also promotes a perception of leadership, organization and preparation. Sure, things come up, and we all run a few minutes late now and again. But whenever possible, start on time and end on time.
2. Make sure every participant knows why they are there—Meetings run best when you have the right people in the room. No one should be wondering why they have been invited to your meeting. If there’s a chance a participant could be unclear about why they’ve been asked to attend, send them a message beforehand and explain why you want their contribution.
3. Have an objective for your meeting—Kick-off your meeting with a quick “why we’re here” statement. Recap for your attendees why you have gathered everyone and what you would like to achieve in your time together.
4. Give your meeting structure—An agenda will keep you on track. You can take your agenda a step further with GoWall. The digital wall and handy topic dropdowns let you itemize each question and idea you want to cover during your meeting. GoWall’s color options provide visual cues (for example, use red to indicate a topic is urgent). And choice fields let your participants rank their comments or add details.
5. Make sure every participant can easily contribute—Each person at your meeting has a point of view or idea to contribute, whether they are in the room, remote, attending in real time, or dropping in on their own time. Make it easy for everyone to freely share their ideas. With GoWall, meeting organizers can curb extroverts’ lengthy monologues and encourage quieter participants to have a voice. Digital walls can be left open for any length of time, giving participants an option to add ideas that come up later. All participants need to do is log into the app and start contributing to the structured set of topics that you have input before the meeting, or added on the fly. It’s easy, it’s fast, and it works.
6. Provide each participant with meeting notes—immediately!—So many excellent sessions and ideas are lost on white boards and flip charts that never get transcribed. Yet, all of us can agree that meeting notes are valuable tools that save time, encourage action and promote accountability. With GoWall, you can export meeting notes with the click of a button and send them to all participants for immediate action. This is the final step in your meeting plan that will keep your team productive long after the session is over.