Where does the time go? No seriously, why can’t you store it up? Why can’t you borrow it from the future? Probably because we’d all be dead, having spent our future in replays and do-overs.
But fortunately, you can’t store or borrow time. You can only spend it. Instead of launching into a piece on the nature of man and time, I’ll instead supply you with some ideas on its wise expenditure when it comes to meetings.
You’ve done your agenda and selected the right participants, sending them the agenda early so they can have time to look at it. What’s next? Actually, we’re going to look at your agenda again.
When planning your agenda, you need to budget time for each item. Timing each agenda item is a really good way to know if the time allowed or the number of items on the agenda is realistic.
Since you have your timings, you need to live by them. Someone, probably not you if you’re leading the meeting, should be timekeeper. Position yourself so you can see the clock on the wall without turning your head, or take off your watch and put it on the table in front of you. If you don’t have a watch, borrow one. If no one at the meeting has a watch, you’re probably in trouble in other ways as well.
As you approach the time limit for an agenda item, let the participants know. If the discussion is clearly not going to be over, either drop an agenda item so you can use it’s time or capture the discussion so it can be continued in a future meeting. Don’t run over the time limit without acknowledging it and making a choice. Why? Because the more you adhere to this rule, the better you will become at estimating how long agenda items will take. The better you get at that, the more productive your meetings will be.
By the way, when people know you run a tight ship, they come to meetings prepared. Sometimes, they even enjoy the meetings because they know it’s not ever going to become a three hour meltdown.
Upcoming in this series, additional strategies for making meetings more effective:
‘Parking Lot’ off-topic items
End on time…every time
One more thing…sorry, we’re out of time.
Dispatches From The Front 