Books or articles on holding productive meetings? (1 Viewer)

[comfortably numb]

I run several meetings throughout the week and I swear it's like herding cats. We have a very dysfunctional way of holding meetings where we easily go off the rails.

Any good books or articles to give tips or ideas on holding productive, efficient and relatively quick meetings?

 

[tri-man 47]

I would think you'd be able to find some good tips with on-line sleuthing ...or look at clips of the opening meeting at the start of the L.A. Law TV shows for some inspiration about how to get right to it. I've found it best to set an agenda, possibly with the time allotted for each, define the goal, and actively lead the meeting.  When the conversation drifts, actively bring it back.

 

[Maik Jeaunz]

what kind of meetings are they? what kind of problems are you having?

 

[Bucky86]

Shock collars

 

[RUSF18]

Start with having everyone read these books and countless articles. 

 

[parasaurolophus]

Start with having everyone read these books and countless articles. 

I hate these flavor of the day business books.

 

[RUSF18]

You say "you" run the meetings but "we" go off the rails. So you need to be the one to step up and control the agenda. Don't be afraid to tell people to shut the hell up (in a slightly nicer way) and table a topic to move on to something else. If a few people are discussing something that isn't particularly relevant to your topic, instruct them to put together a meeting/call for themselves to come to some sort of agreement or whatever. 

Circulate the agenda beforehand and make sure everyone who is expected to speak irons out their respective talking points beforehand. If they don't, you hold them accountable. If there's time leftover afterwards, open the floor up to others but only after the important topics have been covered/addressed. 

 

[comfortably numb]

what kind of meetings are they? what kind of problems are you having?

I swear I think people here get ADHD from the water or something.
Every meeting turns into side conversations or we are talking about JOB X and within 2 minutes were talking about that job for 12 minutes or worse another job all together

 

[comfortably numb]

You say "you" run the meetings but "we" go off the rails. So you need to be the one to step up and control the agenda. Don't be afraid to tell people to shut the hell up (in a slightly nicer way) and table a topic to move on to something else. If a few people are discussing something that isn't particularly relevant to your topic, instruct them to put together a meeting/call for themselves to come to some sort of agreement or whatever. 

Circulate the agenda beforehand and make sure everyone who is expected to speak irons out their respective talking points beforehand. If they don't, you hold them accountable. If there's time leftover afterwards, open the floor up to others but only after the important topics have been covered/addressed. 

I run some and even when others run other meetings that I attend.
Just generally speaking we can fly off the rails pretty fast.
I'm trying to focus on the meetings I am responsible for. I have already made it knows if we end up talking about JOB X for more than 5 min, we need to stop and someone can schedule a JOB X meeting for another time.

Our typical shop meeting will be me going over our shop schedule in a room with 6-12 other people.
We run down each job. I provide update on each job and so forth.
Agenda is pretty straight forward and when I was a part of these meetings, the owner of the company would "run" it and we could be there for 90-120 minutes easily.

I have since taken them over and still at times feel we derail too much despite having led meetings that are 40-70 minutes mainly.
The shut the hell up method may be the simplest way.
I was looking for tips or ways to better meetings to avoid having them derail.

 

[3C's]

First rule of productive meetings is to not have meetings.

 

[pats3in4]

Set your time limit to 30 minutes.  Be your harshest critic should you exceed it.  You will find how much better you become at setting a focused agenda, clarifying the expectations of the meeting outcome, selecting whom to invite, and how well you drive the meeting when giving yourself that one constraint.

 

[RUSF18]

I run some and even when others run other meetings that I attend.
Just generally speaking we can fly off the rails pretty fast.
I'm trying to focus on the meetings I am responsible for. I have already made it knows if we end up talking about JOB X for more than 5 min, we need to stop and someone can schedule a JOB X meeting for another time.

Our typical shop meeting will be me going over our shop schedule in a room with 6-12 other people.
We run down each job. I provide update on each job and so forth.
Agenda is pretty straight forward and when I was a part of these meetings, the owner of the company would "run" it and we could be there for 90-120 minutes easily.

I have since taken them over and still at times feel we derail too much despite having led meetings that are 40-70 minutes mainly.
The shut the hell up method may be the simplest way.
I was looking for tips or ways to better meetings to avoid having them derail.

Sounds like you're making progress, just keep tightening up and make sure people realize the importance you're placing on keeping it controlled and efficient. 

If you have a poor performer in there, wouldn't hurt to make an example out of them the next time that person contributes to things going off the rails. That will help people understand. 

 

[Sand]

I have since taken them over and still at times feel we derail too much despite having led meetings that are 40-70 minutes mainly.

First rule - set the meeting for 60 minutes and make it clear that this is a hard stop.  At the start of each meeting remind people the agenda of the meeting is to get X worked out in that 60 minutes.  That sets a good tone.

 

[Ilov80s]

I swear I think people here get ADHD from the water or something.
Every meeting turns into side conversations or we are talking about JOB X and within 2 minutes were talking about that job for 12 minutes or worse another job all together

 Very common. Agendas are obviously good. Creating agreed upon parameters for all meetings is good practice- set them together and apply them to all meetings. This should include staying on topic. That way people can feel comfortable dismissing off task behavior and asking people to move back on task. It won't feel as much like the individual is being called but that a democratic rule is being applied.

Also sending agendas out ahead of time and asking certain individuals to have thoughts prepared on certain topics. This way people get a chance to talk but have had time and heads up gather thoughts that will be focused. Have people submit comments and questions on the agenda ahead of time and you can choose the ones addressed so that it's less likely the meeting gets derailed.

 

[-fish-]

guy asks for books or articles on having productive meetings.  13 responses don't provide a direct response to the actual question.

this is why you don't have productive meetings.

 

[comfortably numb]

guy asks for books or articles on having productive meetings.  13 responses don't provide a direct response to the actual question.

this is why you don't have productive meetings.

Lmao.

In hindsight I probably should have said tips or ideas. I ain't reading no books on meetings 

 

[Long Ball Larry]

I don't know about books, but look at how many items on your agenda.  I would try not have more than 4 for a 60 minute meeting.

 

[comfortably numb]

I don't know about books, but look at how many items on your agenda.  I would try not have more than 4 for a 60 minute meeting.

Typically 1 agenda and 25 jobs to update on. It's those updates that morphs conversations.

Are the units arriving from China on time?  No, looks like 2 weeks late. Then a conversation can start in regards to how will we produce when units come in. Then QC will chime in and say we'd like to inspect all the units when they come in. Then we veer off on QC government requirements for the job and needing certs from our welders, then we veer off to we need to hire more qualified welders. Then owner says we need to capitalize the word "domestic" on the schedule to match the others on the schedule. Then down the table someone is talking about how this factory is regularly late on our shipments. It's at this point I will bang on the gavel my coo bought for me.

I struggle to say guys we don't need to discuss the specifics on a certain job right here when at times the conversations being had, while very specific can be a needed quick discussion to mive a job along and at other times its just lots of babbling about specifics on a job that benefit no one else in the room.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

Do these people prepare reports beforehand?  Can they provide more detail?

Our executive meetings have 8 people and several months ago we all sent out a written summary beforehand because we were going to be short on time due to an outside guest.  It made the meeting run way better and now we do it every time.  not always perfectly, but its a big help.

i think sometimes people like to talk to prove that they are doing something.  and sometimes they just like to talk.

aside from pre-written stuff, part of it is definitely just reigning people in.  I run a regular meeting with 3 tech people and it could last all day if I let it.  But I set the time and set the topics and if we go too far off, I just say it's enough, move on and we'll follow up on that another time.  But it's important to take notes of that and follow up at least sometimes.  Some of the time it probably won't even matter.

Also, to the extent that you can choose the time for the meeting, it might help, at least for your own sanity.  If you can figure out when would be the best time for you to hold the meeting and also control your day, it might help you feel better.  I went to a seminar last year called Taking Control of Your Workday.  I can't say that I got that many specifics from it, but it helped to just kind of take a step back and psychologically refresh and re-orient.  One of the biggest takeaways was to really think about how I was using my time and prioritizing.  I tended to put all of the things that I needed to get done for other people at the beginning of the day, when I was probably at my best.  Then by the time I could to the stuff that I really wanted to do, I was cranky and it was a cycle.  So I figured out how to re-prioritize some things, especially the things that I really cared about.  

It's possible that these kind of production meetings are more rigid, but it might be something to think about.  I try to hold meetings in the afternoon now.

Anyway, that was kind of rambly and probably not specific enough. 

 

[Rattle and Hum]

Does your team use Salesforce, Asana, or something like that? I'm wondering how practical it is to update 25 jobs in an in-person meeting. It's possible that these meetings might be outdated and not necessary.

 

[ragincajun]

Gavel possibly?

Google Spacer document, it may help.

 

[UncleZen]

set agenda and change it to a stand up meeting somewhere in the main work area. It dropped our main production meeting from 60 mins to around 20 mins a day.

 

[Wooderson]

Do you provide coffee and donuts at these meetings?

Aint nobody going leave a meeting early if they are getting paid to have coffee and donuts. 

 

[Poke_4_Life]

Death by Meeting

The author Patrick Lencioni has a lot of good business books.

 

[Statorama]

Do these people prepare reports beforehand?  Can they provide more detail?

Our executive meetings have 8 people and several months ago we all sent out a written summary beforehand because we were going to be short on time due to an outside guest.  It made the meeting run way better and now we do it every time.  not always perfectly, but its a big help.

i think sometimes people like to talk to prove that they are doing something.  and sometimes they just like to talk.

aside from pre-written stuff, part of it is definitely just reigning people in.  I run a regular meeting with 3 tech people and it could last all day if I let it.  But I set the time and set the topics and if we go too far off, I just say it's enough, move on and we'll follow up on that another time.  But it's important to take notes of that and follow up at least sometimes.  Some of the time it probably won't even matter.

Also, to the extent that you can choose the time for the meeting, it might help, at least for your own sanity.  If you can figure out when would be the best time for you to hold the meeting and also control your day, it might help you feel better.  I went to a seminar last year called Taking Control of Your Workday.  I can't say that I got that many specifics from it, but it helped to just kind of take a step back and psychologically refresh and re-orient.  One of the biggest takeaways was to really think about how I was using my time and prioritizing.  I tended to put all of the things that I needed to get done for other people at the beginning of the day, when I was probably at my best.  Then by the time I could to the stuff that I really wanted to do, I was cranky and it was a cycle.  So I figured out how to re-prioritize some things, especially the things that I really cared about.  

It's possible that these kind of production meetings are more rigid, but it might be something to think about.  I try to hold meetings in the afternoon now.

Anyway, that was kind of rambly and probably not specific enough. 

There's a lot of really good advice in here.  LBL touched on my advice, and that's to get as much information as you can prior to the meeting.  If you're armed with information you'll be in a better position to steer the meeting back on the road should you veer off.

(and total LOL on tech people meetings....it's taken me a long time to be able to distinguish what's important and what's not...they are some ramblin ramblers)