{"id":2213,"date":"2011-12-20T10:04:31","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T16:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/?p=2213"},"modified":"2022-08-04T10:36:49","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T15:36:49","slug":"is-your-meeting-worth-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/is-your-meeting-worth-the-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Meeting Worth the Time?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Meeting\"A couple of days ago I fired up my online calendar and started to schedule a meeting with my manager.\u00a0 Our meetings are typically less than 30 minutes long, but I had a lot<\/em> to talk about, so I was going to make it an hour long.\u00a0 Yessirree.\u00a0 I had a lot of stuff on my mind, I needed an audience, and he was the logical person to hear me out!<\/p>\n

Fortunately, we have a little meeting protocol where I work.\u00a0 In our organization, you can\u2019t schedule a meeting without identifying the objective<\/em> of the meeting and the desired outcome<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 At first, I didn\u2019t think it would be difficult to get my thoughts around those things and document them.\u00a0 (Did I mention I had a lot<\/em> to talk about?)<\/p>\n

But when it came to actually spelling out the objective in the invitation, my fingers froze. I hadn\u2019t really gotten much past \u201cTo talk about all the stuff I need to talk about.\u201d\u00a0 That, of course, left me with nothing to describe in the way of the desired outcome.<\/p>\n

So I took my hands off the keyboard, put them on my forehead, and started to think:\u00a0 What is the purpose of this meeting?\u00a0 Why should he take his time, that is, the organization’s most valuable resource, to meet with me?\u00a0 What do I have to say that is worth his time to discuss?<\/p>\n

The truth is, I did<\/em> have a lot on my mind.\u00a0 I was feeling overwhelmed and unfocused with more to deal with than I had the bandwidth for. \u00a0<\/em>I had ideas and thoughts about some things I was excited about and wanted to be able to\u00a0address all of it, but I couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The truth is also that I did not <\/em>have a lot to discuss.\u00a0 I just needed to know the current priorities of things on my plate.\u00a0 My objective was to clarify my priorities, and the desired outcome that I needed at the end of our meeting was a list.<\/p>\n

Once this became clear, the meeting got a lot shorter.<\/p>\n

How long ago was it that you attended a meeting with 3, 5, or 10 people without a clear understanding of the purpose and deliverable expected out of the meeting?\u00a0\u00a0When was the last meeting you attended that\u00a0got off track in the absence of\u00a0a meeting objective?\u00a0 How many meeting agendas have you seen that included\u00a0extraneous items that wouldn’t have been necessary had a purpose been identified?\u00a0\u00a0Most importantly, when was the last time you were sitting in a meeting that you\u00a0might not have needed to attend if a clear meeting objective had been defined?<\/p>\n

The time it takes to be thoughtful about a meeting objective and desired outcome is not free, but it will always be cheaper than the time squandered in meetings without clear objectives defined.<\/p>\n

So the next time you are inviting people to a meeting, consider identifying the objective of the meeting.\u00a0 If someone were to ask you why your meeting is worth their time and organizational money, could you answer?\u00a0 Maybe your objective is to get a decision about something.\u00a0 Or identify options.\u00a0 Or prioritize choices.\u00a0 Whatever it is, define it first \u2013 before developing an agenda, deciding how long it will be, or whom to invite.<\/p>\n

And then write down what it is you need to walk out of your meeting with, your desired outcome.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s a decision.\u00a0 Or signatures of approval.\u00a0 Or a list of options.\u00a0 Whatever it is, write it down.\u00a0 You\u2019ll find your meetings are more likely to end on time because you know when they\u2019re over \u2013 you\u2019ve named it!<\/p>\n

Try it.\u00a0 But don\u2019t expect to like it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a lot<\/em> easier to just send an invitation to a bunch of people for a meeting about\u2026you know…that thing we need to talk about.<\/p>\n

But once you have defined an objective, the rest of the meeting will become a lot more clear.\u00a0 Your desired outcome will probably reveal itself.\u00a0 Who really<\/em> needs to be there will become evident \u2013 and will probably result in a shorter list of invitees than a meeting with no defined objectives.\u00a0 Your agenda will begin to take shape and, again, probably be shorter than with an undefined meeting.<\/p>\n

I ended up scheduling\u00a0our meeting for 40 minutes, which is longer than we usually meet, but shorter than I initially intended to request.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty confident it\u2019s going to be a good use of organizational time and resources.\u00a0 I think my manager is, too.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of days ago I fired up my online calendar and started to schedule a meeting with my manager.\u00a0 Our meetings are typically less than 30 minutes long, but I had a lot to talk about, so I was going to make it an hour long.\u00a0 Yessirree.\u00a0 I had a lot of stuff on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,211,15,1],"tags":[51,43,41,58,23,22,40],"coauthors":[140],"class_list":["post-2213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-consulting-skills","category-project-management","category-stakeholders","category-watermark-learning","tag-communication","tag-effective-meetings","tag-facilitation-skills","tag-influencing","tag-life-skills","tag-project-management","tag-virtual-meetings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10748,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions\/10748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2213"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}