Picture this: You’ve just finished a presentation on your company’s technology and product roadmap at a business-wide launch event. The event followed a working lunch and approval meeting with investors, where you discussed the plan through another lens. Lunch followed a product backlog meeting that completely changed the strategy for your current projects and needs some careful planning to execute further with the team.
Do you feel energised, or exhausted? - I personally had to sit in a meeting room cubical for a few moments afterwards, just to recharge for post-work beers.
This scenario highlights the importance of being mindful of the time we spend in meetings and the energy we invest in them. And this will, of course, be different depending on multiple factors including your personality traits.
Effective team meetings are essential for sharing ideas, making decisions, and driving progress. However, ensuring every team member feels included, engaged, and energized, especially in larger groups, can be challenging. So, let’s explore some tactics for creating inclusive and productive meetings that maximize everyone’s time and energy. Most of this is obvious stuff, once said 😊
🗣️ Look who's talking.
Next time you’re in a large meeting, pay attention to how many people speak. How does this compare to down smaller meetings?
You’ll probably find that the more people in a meeting, the fewer speakers there are and that larger meetings tend to be dominated by key people, management, and extroverts of that perspective.
For example, in a twelve-person meeting, most of the talking might be done by just a couple of people, while in a six-person meeting, everyone gets a chance to contribute.
👨🍳 Preparation Tactics
Always have an agenda, and encourage the team to read the agenda items beforehand. It doesn’t have to be a pre-meeting meeting, just a few notes on a Slack channel or email. A pre-planned agenda allows everyone to prepare and feel invested in the meeting’s purpose.
What is your goal? If you can’t think of your meeting goal, you should probably reject it.
Schedule accordingly: Knowing the agenda and the goal beforehand is great, but what about any work required beforehand? Do you have ample time to prepare? Where does it sit alongside your other work?
Send materials ahead of time: If there are questions or prep for other attendees to contribute to, send these out to give plenty of time for all parties to contribute equally.
🎯 Effective Meeting Tactics
Have a facilitator - Facilitators set times and the cadence of the meeting, ensuring all points are discussed equally, and opportunities are given to all attendees.
Have a scribe - A scribe writes everything down, from comments to minutes and actions. Ideally, these notes, particularly when accepting ideas and inputs from other attendees, should be verbatim to ensure that no idea is misinterpreted. A scribe is also responsible for noting down action items and decisions.
Set context - Ensure that everyone understands the purpose and objectives of the meeting before commencing to allow for any questions or immediate concerns to be raised. For client/customer meetings, this is a great opportunity to confirm whether a customer really wants to talk about something else that is not on your agenda.
Take regular breaks - Break every 45 minutes to avoid meeting fatigue.
⌛ Managing Time and ⚡ Energy
Time is a given factor in meetings, and it really comes down to communication within the team and understanding each other’s agendas and workload.
Energy, on the other hand, is a whole different beast and will depend on the meeting itself and the attendees. Remember my story above?
You have to use your best judgment of the personality traits of those involved, so you may want to ask that individual if they will be energized or exhausted afterwards. It’s impractical to assume that every meeting you put together should have everyone “super pumped” from being in it; some meetings are HARD.
I've seen this tactic going around in social media recently, and having tried it for a week I recommend giving a go:
After an activity or meeting ask “How do I feel, exhausted or energised”
If it sapped energy, mark it red in your calendar. 🔴 -1
If it boosted your energy, mark it green. 🟢 +1
Over the course of the week, keep a tally of how many red, versus green activities you have, being mindful to schedule a balance of red and green over the course of the next week.
Conclusion
Implementing these strategies for inclusive and productive tech team meetings can foster a collaborative environment where everyone feels valued, engaged, and energized. Remember to set clear expectations, ensure equal opportunities for contribution, encourage questions and understanding, and be respectful of everyone’s time and energy.
With these tactics in mind, this week is mental health awareness week, a stark reminder that we all need to ask “Are you OK?” More, and a good time to host a team health check or retrospective 👍