Teambuilding

4. Making Meetings Productive

4.1 Ensure meetings are well organised.

• Hold meetings regularly and often. Teams that meet frequently take less time to gel. Keep the purpose of each meeting clear.
• Brief team members in preparation for particular or unusual stages of a project.
• Circulate agendas in good time.
• Keep meetings short, and start and finish on time.
• Use team briefings to keep everyone informed of relevant developments (eg changes in technology).

4.2 Get the whole team's involvement.

• During discussion, invite contributions from each member of the team. Avoid using leading questions. Ask 'How can we increase our margins?', rather than 'Are we going to have to raise our prices to increase margins?'
• After discussing each point, assign responsibility to an individual, for completion by a certain date. Make sure action points are understood and agreed by those concerned.
• At the end of each meeting, review what has been covered and check all team members are happy with the outcome.

4.3 Follow up after each meeting.

• Circulate minutes no later than two days afterwards.
• Review progress on all actions at the next meeting.