216: Design the Optimal Team Meeting

No matter how big or small your team is, there are always things to discuss. Most managers respond by holding weekly meetings. At their best, team meetings are a forum for open and productive communication between team members. At their worst, they waste everyone’s time and energy. If your weekly meetings aren't moving your work forward and leaving people in a positive mood, it’s probably time you redesign them.

In this episode, I share practical advice that you can implement to make your weekly meetings more productive and enjoyable for everyone.

The full episode guide includes an overview of the factors to consider when designing a team meeting, along with examples of team meeting structures, formats, and prework to consider using as a model for your team. Get it when you join the Modern Manager community or purchase the full guide at www.themodernmanager.com/shop. 

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Read the related blog article: Make Weekly Team Meetings Work for Your Team

Key Takeaways:

There is no right way to have a team meeting. The key is to identify your meeting objectives so that you can design the meeting to meet those needs.

Consider the flow of the agenda. How will you structure your time together to achieve the meeting objectives? 

Team meetings can be as short as 15 minutes or as long as multiple hours, as long as the time is well spent.

Determine what people can do to best prepare for the meeting. This could include completing a dashboard, contributing topics to discuss, or nothing at all.

Don’t assume a weekly meeting is necessary. Sometimes daily or monthly cadences are more appropriate.

Explore the format that will best meet the team’s needs. It could be in person, virtually, via Slack, or something else.

Regularly revisit the design of your team meetings to assess if they are still meeting the team’s needs. It’s okay to experiment with different choices in order to optimize how your team meets.

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