Many meetings are conducted with a series of PowerPoint slides. Thus, they take up a lot of time, and end without concrete decisions. Here you’ll find proven principles for efficient meetings that lead to quick and well-founded decisions.

• Use meetings exclusively for decision-making, not for information sharing: Ban PowerPoint presentations from your meetings. Instead, send out a Word document with all the key facts, conclusions, and recommendations before the meeting. This allows all participants to prepare and focus on decisions during the meeting. Request confirmation before the meeting that the information has been read, this ensures everyone is prepared.
• Appoint a meeting leader and create a clear agenda with time frames for each item: The meeting person leader ensures that both agenda & time frames are followed, and that everyone is guided toward making a decision. If the meeting goes off-topic, the time frame is exceeded, or discussions get lost in details, it’s important to postpone the decision.
• Have the meeting summarized with decisions and who does what by when: The meeting leader prepares a brief summary within 24 hours after each meeting. This should clearly state what was decided, who is responsible for which tasks, and by when these should be completed.

Efficient meetings are the key to a productive and goal-oriented way of working. Make the best use of your time and resources with precise meeting preparation, a clear agenda with time frames, a summary of decisions, and follow-up on results.

Feel free to contact me at ak@aklein-consult.com to improve your meeting culture!