Meeting Best Practices

Meeting Energy Levels

• A-Energy: Focused, prepared, high-leverage meetings.
• B/C-Energy: Reactive, unclear, or unfocused meetings.

Aim to operate at A-energy by having clear strategies and ownership.

Meeting Strategies

• What does a good agenda look like?
• Should agreed action points be emailed after

Synthesis of meeting workflow (ref Alfred Sloan)

1. Send out invitation 1 week in advance
   1. Announce purpose/topic.
   2. List agenda topics as questions
   3. Attach reference material
2. Have the meeting
   1. Announce purpose/topic.
   2. List agenda topics as questions (and follow the agenda)
      1. IF(your meeting): Present (do 90% of talking) and ask if there is anything that needs to be clarified
      2. IF(not your meeting): Listen (do 10% of talking) and ask clarifying questions
   3. Anything we need to change/add?
   4. Review last meeting’s !/+/Δ
   5. Take notes
   • Decisions
   • Action-points (What should be done, by when, and who’s responsible?)
     • MoSCoW
   6. 5min to wrap up/summarize
      1. !: Align on decisions and action list.
      2. +: “What did we do well?”
         
      3. Δ: “What do we want to do differently?”
3. Leave
4. Immediately send an email to one attendee.
   1. Summarize discussion and conclusion.
   2. Spell out work assignments, next meeting on the subject or to study an issue.
   3. Specify deadlines and accountable persons.
   4. Send copy (CC) to all.

One-on-ones

• If you like structured agendas, then the employee should set the agenda.
  • A good practice is to have the employee send you the agenda in advance.
  • This will give her a chance to cancel the meeting if nothing is pressing.
  • It also makes clear that it is her meeting and will take as much or as little time as she needs.
• During the meeting, since it’s the employee’s meeting, the manager should do 10% of the talking and 90% of the listening.
  • Note that this is the opposite of most one-on-ones.

If you feel that you are floundering (as every student sometimes does), ask your advisor for extra meetings, send frequent email messages asking for pointers, or discuss your work with another trusted faculty member or student.

Negotiation

• As low as possible: 65 –> 85 –> 95 –> 100
• As high as possible: 155 -> 120 -> 105 -> 100
• End on odd number

8 Rules to Run Effective Meetings

1. Keep meetings small (6–8 people).
2. Standing meetings reduce duration by 34%.
3. Send a detailed agenda before the meeting. State the purpose and desired outcomes for every attendee. No agenda means no meeting.
4. Keep one seat open at every meeting. This way, decisions will always consider the impact on the end user.
5. Use AI transcription tools to quickly capture key meeting points and action items.
6. Implement Maker-Manager Schedules. Managers thrive on 30-minute blocks for decisions. Makers need 3–4 hour blocks for deep work-schedule afternoon meetings for makers to protect creative flow.
7. Use the 4-Bullet Update. Update with 4 points: what was done, requested asks, current blockers, and future improvements. Save hours in recurring meetings.
8. Finish meetings with Action Memos detailing decisions, owners, and deadlines.

Questions NGN (eNGiNe)

• Need-to-know: Answer will affect conclusion (Major objection)
• Good-to-know: Answer could affect conclusion (Other concern)
• Nice-to-know: Answer won’t affect conclusion (avoid asking this question)