We’ve all attended business meetings that didn’t run smoothly. Maybe someone arrived late, there was no agenda, or you didn’t need to be there at all. While meetings happen every day, there’s an art to running effective business meetings.
In this guide, we’ll share with you:
The way you plan and host a meeting can have a huge impact on its outcome. Let’s explore business meetings in more detail and walk away with ideas and strategies to make them even better.
A business meeting is where people get together to discuss, problem solve, or make decisions — depending on the reason for meeting. They can happen in-person, remotely with video conferencing software, or asynchronously with tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams.
Your meeting might include stakeholders, clients, and members of the community, or be a gathering of internal team members. The type of meeting and purpose will guide who you invite, what you talk about, and what happens next.
There are hundreds of reasons why you might gather people for a meeting. They’ll likely fall into one of these types of business meetings:
While every type of meeting is slightly different, there are still ground rules for running an effective meeting. Use these strategies to help you plan, run, and evaluate successful business meetings.
Before you can get started, you first need to know what the purpose of the meeting is. Maybe you’re meeting to make a decision about a project, or to get to know a new member of the team. Decide what your end goal or meeting objective is, so you can plan an agenda and discussion topics that help you reach it.
Your company is filled with busy people, so make the best use of their time and only invite them to meetings they absolutely need to attend. Be ruthless with your meeting participants list to get more value from the time you spend together. An exception to this would be an all hands meeting or town hall meeting, where it’s essential that you invite everyone to hear the news.
A clear and strong meeting agenda keeps everyone on track and makes it easier to reach your meeting goals. Start with a template agenda and add agenda items and discussion topics that relate to your meeting objectives. Encourage team members to collaborate on the agenda with the help of our meeting prep template. Include key details like the start and end time of the meeting, how they can join, and how long discussion on each agenda item is due to last.
The way your team or company runs meetings can vary, which is why it’s important to be open about your meeting culture ahead of time. Explain your approach to time keeping, interruptions, going off-topic, and other virtual meeting etiquette you follow. It can be helpful to clarify these at the meeting start too, especially for new participants.
Every successful meeting should have someone assuming the role of facilitator. Whether you invite a designated facilitator to host the meeting or it’s part of your role, meeting management should be someone’s priority. The facilitator helps keep to the meeting time, encourages fair participation, and deals with any challenges or interruptions. They play an essential role in your business meetings.
Traditional meetings are great for extroverts and people who can share their ideas confidently, but this means you miss out on some of the best and most diverse voices. Instead, offer multiple ways for someone to contribute ideas and take part in the discussion.
Use an app like Polly to help people share anonymous feedback and ideas with an Open Forum, Polly’s built-for-Slack suggestion box, and introduce live polls so people can vote on decisions in the meeting. Alongside making it easy for people to take part, these additions also help introverted employees feel welcome and promote inclusivity in remote meetings.
Even with the clearest agenda and a no-nonsense facilitator, your participants might have questions throughout the meeting. Create space at the end of the meeting to review questions and any other business before you close the discussion. Simplify the process by using Polly’s Q&A in Microsoft Teams. Set up your prompt, then encourage everyone to submit their questions publicly or anonymously for you to answer in the meeting. If the question can’t be answered swiftly, make a note of it and include a more detailed response in your follow-up email or message — or schedule a separate meeting to discuss it.
Before you close your meeting, take a moment to recap what’s happened and list some action items. These should clearly set out who is responsible, what the action is, and a deadline. With all three elements, it’s easier to follow up and make sure the task gets done. You should also put together some meeting minutes or share a recording of the meeting with participants, so they can check back for context or any missing information.
Once the meeting is over, your job isn’t done. Successful meeting hosts send a follow-up message afterward to ensure nothing is left to chance. Thank your participants for attending, share a recap and agenda items, and mention any plans for your next meeting together. This is also a perfect opportunity to ask for meeting feedback. Use this as part of a system of continuous feedback to make your meetings and overall experience even more effective.
Meetings aren’t just an opportunity to sit on a video call and discuss what’s on your mind. Used correctly, they’re a valuable way to surface ideas, make decisions, and strengthen remote team bonds. Use this guide to help you plan and run better business meetings.
If you’re looking for a way to make your meetings run smoothly, add Polly as your co-pilot. Polly’s meeting management features make it easier to capture agenda items, engage people within your meetings, make decisions, and gather valuable meeting feedback. With these systems in place, you can run more successful meetings and simplify the planning and prep experience.