Deanna hated chairing meetings. She looked around the room. "So, have we dealt with that item? Is everyone OK?" Nobody replied. Most were looking down at their pads or their coffee mugs. Dave continued peeling the label from his water bottle.
Having waited long enough, Deanna continued, "I'll take that as a yes." But she thought to herself, 'This is so discouraging. Nobody cares.'
She might be right about that. And there's an alternative explanation, too. The agenda item she's asking about is simply, "Marigold." With such a vague and ambiguous statement of the agenda item, many on the team can't really tell whether they're free to express their concerns. Rather than risk being ruled out of order, some just sit quietly. Others are willing to move on because they just hate meetings.
Deanna and her team are suffering some of the consequences of stating agenda items ambiguously. How you express the agenda, and the order of the items, helps set expectations, which strongly influences the effectiveness of any meeting. Here are some tips for making effective agendas.
- Phrase each agenda item as an imperative
- For instance, not "Marigold" but "Resolve issues in Marigold." This sets a mental framework for attendees to actually do something.
- Make agenda items specific
- Phrasing each agenda item
as an imperative sets
a mental framework
for action - Not "Resolve issues in Marigold", but rather "Resolve staffing issues in Marigold." Make agenda items describe a goal that's objectively measurable.
- Allocate time to each agenda item
- If you don't allocate time, you won't be able to tell whether the meeting is running late or by how much.
- Deal with overruns honestly
- If an item takes longer than planned, don't steal time from other items. Halt discussion, and decide which later agenda item(s) you'll postpone or shift to committee.
- Have a timekeeper
- The facilitator has enough work to do, especially if the facilitator is also chair.
- Exploit order
- If one item is likely to smoke out information that will help other items — or render them moot — do it first.
- Address emotionally charged items early
- Charged items require energy, and they're also dangerous. Address them while everyone is fresh. Leaving them for the end as a way of managing time doesn't actually work. The tension will only build if you leave them for the end.
- Poll everyone for contributions in advance
- You don't want people bringing up new and possibly irrelevant or unaddressable items right at the start of the meeting. When you poll attendees for agenda items before you distribute your draft agenda, you find out where the energy is, and it's a big win to pick up important items you hadn't thought of. Move to the "Not-Agenda" any items you don't want to address or can't address.
Ironically, we tend to pay more attention to agendas for larger meetings. Smaller meetings actually require more care, because of the temptation to slip into informal conversation. I could go on about that, but it isn't on today's agenda. Top
Next Issue
Do you spend your days scurrying from meeting to meeting? Do you ever wonder if all these meetings are really necessary? (They aren't) Or whether there isn't some better way to get this work done? (There is) Read 101 Tips for Effective Meetings to learn how to make meetings much more productive and less stressful — and a lot more rare. Order Now!
For more on agendas, see "Have a Program, Not Just an Agenda," Point Lookout for May 9, 2007; and "First Aid for Painful Meetings," Point Lookout for October 24, 2001.
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Related articles
More articles on Project Management:
The Politics of Lessons Learned
- Many organizations gather lessons learned — or at least, they believe they do. Mastering the political
subtleties of lessons learned efforts enhances results.
The Politics of the Critical Path: II
- The Critical Path of a project is the sequence of dependent tasks that determine the earliest completion
date of the effort. We don't usually consider tasks that are already complete, but they, too, can experience
the unique politics of the critical path.
Guidelines for Sharing "Resources"
- Often, team members belong to several different teams. The leaders of teams whose members have divided
responsibilities must sometimes contend with each other for the efforts and energies of the people they
share. Here are some suggestions for sharing people effectively.
Unnecessary Boring Work: II
- Workplace boredom can result from poor choices by the person who's bored. More often boredom comes from
the design of the job itself. Here's Part II of our little catalog of causes of workplace boredom.
Should We Do This?
- Answering the question, "Should we do this?" is among the more difficult decisions organizational
leaders must make. Weinberger's Six Tests provide a framework for making these decisions. Careful application
of the framework can prevent disasters.
See also Project Management and Project Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
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And on March 26: Seven Ways to Support Word-of-Mouth About Your Content
- Whether you're making a presentation or writing an article or a book, making your material more memorable is a desirable objective. After the talk, or after the reader sets down your work, what you have to offer will be accessible only if the auditor or reader remembers something about it. Available here and by RSS on March 26.
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