Shorter meetings need structure to provide excellent value. Here's how.

 

Reducing the sheer volume of time spent in meetings is a key part of transforming meeting culture.

Q: But how do you do that without just putting every meeting on fast forward?

A: use meeting duration as a creative constraint - add some structures and encourage more candour.

  

A date with reality

Having a meaningful conversation about something that matters takes a minimum amount of time. Yes, we can get some meetings running at a high pace - with a great design and lots of practice. But rushing through important content is rarely a good use of time. 

Ask: “What’s realistic for this group of people to achieve in this timeframe?”

Cut the scope accordingly. With practice, you will find you can cover more.

 

Precision invitation

The invitation is the perfect place to set boundaries around your scope

* Write a meeting purpose that provides a clear and specific goal 

* Write questions the meeting should answer (see examples on the next page)

* List any decisions that need to be made

* List out what you will do and also what you won’t do in this session


👆 Sending this over in the invitation will set expectations and help people self-moderate.

👆 Re-iterate the key points briefly when you open the meeting

 

Structure for contribution

Ask: “How can we structure our time to make it easy for people to contribute efficiently”

Timeboxing: Tell people how long you want their update to be: “In 90 seconds, can you…” or “In this first 10 minutes we’ll hear everyone’s updates”

Rounds: A round is where the group is invited to answer a question in turn. Everyone has the chance to respond and there are rules about what others can say during each response e.g. no discussion or clarifying questions only.

Rounds can help at the beginning of meetings, to allow everyone to contribute early and get key facts on the table. They can also help break long, circular discussions e.g. “Let’s to a round where we each share where we stand on this particular issue.”

Brain-writing: ask people to take 4-5 minutes to think and write their comments in the chat box.

Flipped meeting: pull tasks that are better completed asynchronously out of the meeting - and use the meeting just for addressing uncertainty. For example, ask people to prepare and read each other’s updates and add comments/questions BEFORE the meeting. Then spend the meeting addressing the most important three questions.

 

Safety statement for more candour

Get to the heart of what matters faster with a safety statement.

“Today is about disagreeing as much as agreeing. We need everyone’s perspective, shared respectfully and directly.”

Use a positively framed ‘we’ statement in the present tense.

 

Cut through questions

When things are getting bedraggled, try:

- What options are available to us?

- What information are we missing that we need to gather after this meeting? Let’s make a list…”

- What do we agree on and where is there still disagreement?

- What are the risks of moving forward with X and how can we mitigate them?

- What’s the best use of the remaining time we have together today?

 

Back to your north star

Refer back to what you shared in the invitation to bring back focus. If you end up talking circles you can say, “Let’s come back to the questions we said we’d answer in this session” or "Remember we said we would do.... but we wouldn't do ..."