Following on from my last post I’d like to spend some time discussing meetings. Meetings for me make up a high proportion of my working day.
My Meetings
They are a combination of:
- meetings with people I’m working with on collaborative solutions
- team meetings or 1-to-1 meetings with team members
- meetings informing colleagues in other teams about what we are doing
- meetings with colleagues about new business or business expansion
- meetings with customers
In terms of the type of meetings I’d estimate the following split:
- 50% audio conference
- 40% web conference
- 9% face to face meeting
- 1% video conference [likely to rise]
In terms of geography my meetings are probably split in the following proportions:
- 25% UK
- 3% EMEA
- 20% India
- 50% North America
- 2% Australia
Those last percentages are a little finger in the air as many calls are cross region.
Ensuring meetings are productive
Due to my role I have to assess the benefit I will gain, or the other attendees will gain from my attendance. I also have to prioritise meetings and as such run a form of triage rather than first come first serve. So when I am planning a meeting or receiving an invite I like to supply the following information:
- Aims of the meeting
- Agenda
- Supporting information and documents
- The web conference to be available 15 minutes before to allow people to join without delaying the start of the meeting.
When running meetings I try to use the following rules:
- Follow the agenda.
- Include quiet participants and actively ask for their input.
- Allow discussion and debate [but ensure this doesn’t impact the meeting schedule]
- Regularly summarise actions
- Take notes and record actions in OneNote
- Use web meetings whenever possible especially when discussing documents
- Always remember the disadvantaged participant. If you run a physical meeting and have people remotely dialled in your should allow those people to control the meeting. The spider phone on the table is too easily forgotten!
- Close with actions against each participant and get their acknowledgement.
- Final round the table is important.
How I use OneNote
I think this will be my next post….
Web meeting tools
Another post …
Stu Downes 