Leading Team Meetings

6 Tips for Conducting Effective Meetings

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Over the past twenty years, I’ve held thousands of team meetings as small as three or four people and as large as five hundred. I’ve even had meetings to teach people how to conduct meetings.

While I committed my own early blunders, over time, I’ve distilled my meeting format down to a relatively simple strategy for leading team meetings that work for all sorts of groups.

Six Solid Tips for Leading Team Meetings:

#1 Use a written agenda

There are a couple of key reasons to have an agenda. First, it’s a guide for you to follow. Secondly, when you want people to cooperate with a plan, it helps to let them know what to expect. An agenda serves that purpose. Finally, for the guy who didn’t bring anything to take notes with, he has your agenda!

Personally, I like to plan my meeting topics in advance of every quarter. This allows plenty of time to arrange for speakers, coordinate training, prepare for any complicated topics, and handle other logistics.

During each week, I keep the agenda open on my desktop and add items as needed. I’ll request input from other managers involved in the meetings as well. By approaching it this way, the agenda basically builds itself through-out the week.