Meetings are as critical to modern organizations, if not more, than traditional ones.
With the workforce being spread across the globe and communication channels expanding faster than ever, it is worth taking a step back and assessing where we would be if not for meetings.
And one of the things that make meetings so important is their need to come to actionable conclusions or the path forward - goals.
In addition to decisions taken in the meeting, consider a few meta-goals that can make your meetings more effective.
And in this blog post, we will explore meta and actual goals.
Meta-goals for effective meetings
Start and finish on time
Few things are more infuriating in the modern workplace than meetings that don't adhere to the pre-set schedule. Starting and ending the meeting on time or ahead of it should be the bare minimum as far as organizer obligations are concerned.
Create actionable steps for goals
Allow time to set actionable goals after the discussion part of the meeting is done. While it is important to identify solutions, it is equally critical to engineer the following steps and set goals to judge their success.
Get feedback from stakeholders
The smartest way to improve your meetings (and their effectiveness) is to create avenues for feedback from stakeholders and make an action plan to address it.
Confirm action items for accuracy and fit
Once your meeting is done, ensure that you have all the action items accurately listed and have POCs attached to each main item to make the follow-up process seamless. On Routine, you can take in-meeting tasks/action items.
Schedule follow-ups
After the meeting is completed and the future course of action is shared with the stakeholders and POCs, you must create a follow-up schedule and stick to it.
Types of meetings & their goals
Not all meetings are the same, and the goals and objectives change with each type of meeting. So to set the right goals, we need first to understand the types of meetings.
Problem-solving meetings
They are used to find solutions to a problem or threat the organization/team faces.
Goal: Classify solutions into most viable to least viable and execute them in the same order.
Brainstorming meetings
They are used to come up with ideas by exploring different hypotheses. These meetings could be chasing a particular goal, but the path to that goal is less defined than meetings dedicated to problem-solving.
Goal: List ideas and perspectives on how to do something along with a possible hierarchy of consideration based on viability and/or ROI.
Planning meetings
They are used to strategize for a project or venture and iron out the finer details of it.
Goal: A clear plan of action and actionables based on the project's requirements.
Decision-making meetings
These meetings are used to choose between alternatives rather than find solutions to problems.
Goal: Pick the best and most viable option amongst the options available and set a roadmap for execution.
Culture building meetings
They are used to get the team together to discuss topics around culture or interact with each other on common interests or values pertaining to the organization.
Goal: Build camaraderie among team members and/or educate the team about the core values and ethics of the organization.
Working session meetings
These meetings are just a way of getting multiple people working on an inter-connected project working together to synergize and move forward a lot more quickly than working in silos.
Goal: Accomplish the task at hand or progress beyond what would have been possible in silos.
Retrospective/review meetings
It is used to reflect on a time frame, project, or activity to reflect and identify learnings and suggest possible paths to improvement.
Goal: Successfully dissect and diagnose an event/time frame/project and make actionable suggestions.
Konklusyon
With that, we come to the end of this post. Now that you understand the common types of meetings and their goals, you can better plan your meetings and their goals accordingly.
Did we miss any meetings or goal types? Let us know on Twitter. Thanks for reading.
