Running Productive Meetings

Get decisions and owners out of the recurring meetings that fill your week

What it is

Running Productive Meetings is a checklist of ten practices to run against your real calendar. They cover the three places where meetings lose value, which are who is in the room, how the time is structured and whether anything happens afterwards. The practices include setting an agenda in advance, inviting only the people who are needed, shortening the default length, keeping status updates in writing and closing with next actions and owners.

If you adopt only three of the tips, start with the agenda, the question "What are we solving for?" and the close. An agenda set in advance gives the meeting a shape before it starts, the question turns each agenda item into a decision, and closing with actions and owners means the work continues after the meeting ends.

When to reach for it

A recurring meeting where the same topics come back each week without being settled
A calendar so full of meetings that your own decisions have started to slow down
A team that agrees its meetings are not working but has not said why

Try it this week

Pick one recurring meeting you run this week and apply the tips to it.

Before the meeting, write the agenda with each item phrased as the question the group needs to answer.
Move status updates into a written note that goes out before the meeting, so the group spends its time on discussion and decisions.
Cut the scheduled length by a third, and invite only the people the decisions need while sending the notes to everyone else.
In the last five minutes, state what was decided, who owns each action and by when, and who will tell the people who were not in the room.
At the next meeting, check which actions were completed and decide whether to keep the shorter length.

Go deeper

Related tools

An original model by Colin Cox

Want help putting this to work with your team? Book a free thirty minutes with Colin.