“Let’s schedule a meeting” can all too easily become the default response to any business situation. Want to discuss ideas for a project? Schedule a meeting. Not sure how to proceed with a client? Schedule a meeting.
In fact, meetings are so popular that U.S. companies hold roughly 55 million each week, which end up using around 15% of employees’ time.
Although meetings can be a powerful tool to collaborate as a team, they are often not very efficient. Research shows that employees consider over 70% of meetings to be unproductive. The result is an estimated $37 billion in lost productivity per year.
So, when do you actually need a meeting for your team, and when could it be an email or Slack message instead? Here’s our guide for determining the right path.
The ‘Should I Schedule a Meeting?’ Guide
What is the goal of the meeting?
No meeting should move forward without a strong purpose in mind. What exactly needs to be decided, discussed, or planned out during the meeting? If you can’t clearly define objectives, then it’s probably not necessary.
Do you have a clear agenda for the meeting?
Even with a solid goal in mind, meetings tend to be unproductive if people aren’t prepared. Make sure to define and share what your objectives are with your team beforehand, so that they can adequately be ready to share their insights.
What is the takeaway for participants?
You should also have in mind what participants will take away by the end of the meeting. Will they have new ideas to work on? New goals to pursue within their own department? It’s not simply what is accomplished in the meeting, but more importantly, what your team can accomplish once it has concluded.
Which people actually need to attend?
One of the most common ways that meetings waste time is by including more people than necessary. Every person invited should have a specific reason for being there. Having extra people will cause the meeting to last longer and pull people away from more productive tasks who don’t need to be there.
Is a real-time conversation necessary to forward progress?
There are situations where people need to talk in real time to make progress on a project, but it’s more common that communication can be handled through chat tools or emails that are less interruptive during the workday. For example, if an employee is looking for feedback on a written plan, emailing it to others and asking for feedback can be far more efficient.
Does it need to be a face-to-face meeting?
Face-to-face meetings can be highly effective, but you don’t need to be limited with today’s variety of options. Messaging conversations, thoughtfully worded emails with smart questions, Zoom calls, and phone calls all allow for more flexibility while accomplishing the same goals. Videoconferencing is especially useful when you have hybrid and remote employees, as well as people or clients in different time zones. Video calls can be similarly overused these days too though, since they have often replaced the “face-to-face” meetings that a lot of people used to have in an office.
Is the meeting worth the cost of holding it?
The ultimate question you should always ask is whether the meeting is worth the cost. Meetings will reduce your employees’ output in the short term. A good meeting will increase their productivity over the long term by aligning your employees with your business goals, while an unnecessary one will just use up their time. Know what you want to get out of a meeting in advance, and make sure that you are prepared to come away with that result to ensure everyone’s time is well spent.
One additional consideration: see if you can add in some pre-determined ‘no-meeting’ days. Recent research shows that banning meetings one day a week increased productivity at companies by 35%. Banning them two days a week led to an impressive 71% productivity increase. Giving your team the space to get into their workflow can reap significant rewards for your company.
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