Team-Builder or Time-Waster? 5 Signs Your Meeting is Sapping Productivity

Anyone who has worked in an office environment knows that meetings are inevitable. And they also know that many of these gatherings seem to serve no purpose. In fact, executives surveyed by Robert Half said that 28 percent of meetings are a waste of time.

Often, you’ll be the person in charge of leading a meeting, so it’s important to be able to distinguish between a gathering that’s necessary and one that’s taking time out of everyone’s day. Here are a few signs that your meeting could be a time waster — and suggestions for how to correct that:

1) You’ve left nothing out. While it’s a good idea to have a meeting agenda, it shouldn’t start to look like a follow-up to War and Peace. The onus is on you, as the organizer, to determine what must be covered and what can be left out. Ask yourself if each person who’s attending has a stake in the majority of items on the agenda. If not, then you either need to trim the list of invitees or revise the plan. Also, just because you’ve set aside a certain period of time for the get-together, that doesn’t mean you need to fill every minute. Look through the agenda for repetitive items, which can be combined, or topics that can be left for another meeting.

2)You’ve invited everyone you can think of. Look through your list of attendees to determine if everyone must be included in the discussion. Often, people are invited as a courtesy instead of out of necessity. A lengthy participant list also may indicate that you are trying to accomplish too much in a single meeting. For instance, say you’ve been tasked with scheduling a meeting about your company’s website redesign. You decide to invite all the web designers, software engineers, writers and editors. The problem is the technical jargon may go over the heads of those on the editorial team, while the discussion on types of content and article lengths won’t be relevant to the IT group. In that instance, it’s best to plan two separate, shorter meetings, both of which will be much more targeted.

3)The meeting runs longer than an hour. Time is a precious commodity, especially in a recession, when everyone is being asked to take on more work. So having people sit in a meeting for longer than an hour is asking a lot. Plus, it’s likely that attendees will start to lose focus as the gathering runs on. Whenever possible, keep meetings under an hour. If you must schedule more time, try to get people to interact, offer them snacks or vary the speakers to help everyone remain engaged. For very long meetings, schedule a break so people can stretch their legs and check their messages.

4)There are too many visual elements. Visuals, such as PowerPoint slides, can be effective for simplifying more complex ideas or reinforcing information. But they can also bog down the discussion. Instead, distribute the visual elements to attendees before the get-together, so everyone has time to review them. Because participants will be familiar with the information when they get to the meeting, you can simply highlight the most important parts and move through the agenda more quickly.

5)They’re becoming a habit. If you have regularly scheduled meetings, you may want to step back and determine if it’s necessary to continue doing so. For instance, if you’re having a difficult time coming up with enough agenda items for each gathering, or the meetings are getting progressively shorter, you may need to adjust the frequency.

By paying attention to the various dynamics of the gatherings you schedule and making adjustments as necessary, you’ll know that the get-togethers you organize are successful and that the participants will find them valuable as well.