No one is perfect, although we can all strive towards perfection through continuous improvement. Managing and running meetings is no different. Whether you're looking at athletic performance or simply improving your golf game, one of the best ways of improving is by reviewing your prior games.
Within the context of meetings, this is easily done, especially as you're working on the meeting minutes and the prior meeting is still on your mind. There's no hard rules here, but there are some general questions that are beneficial...
- How did the meeting generally go?
- What worked well?
- What things didn't?
- What would I change if I had to do run the meeting again?
- What actions can I take to improve the next meeting I run?
You get the picture. It's not rocket science, but it does mean that you need to spend a few moments in your day contemplating how the meeting went. And the great part about this is that this doesn't have to be a formal assessment, but instead can be a quick review of your thoughts on the meeting. This is important because this process is seldom done. And if you're not reviewing your past performance, there's invariably things you'd change or improve upon, that simply aren't going to happen because you're not taking the opportunity for review.
This methodology works great for your average meeting, but for longer or even multi-day meetings such as a team face-to-face, map day, or in depth project meetings, you'll want to formalize the process and get more people involved. Most often this takes the form of an agenda item towards the end of the meeting where you give everyone who attended a chance to provide their input on the meeting. Ideally for in person meetings, this feedback would be listed on a poster paper easel so that everyone can follow along, review what's been said but also so that you have some written notes to take away from the meeting for your minutes. You can do the same for virtual meetings via a shared virtual whiteboard or notes window.
It's often helpful to lead the meeting attendees through each question one by one for sake of cohesiveness. You might find out things you may not have realized such as the ice breaker was really enjoyable but the time slot was too short. Or when the topic turned to the acme project, the team spent too much time discussing tangental ratholes. Or maybe everything went so well, the consensus is to have a similar meeting every quarter. The feedback shouldn't be overly negative or pointed to cause issues, but knowing that Sally did a great job time keeping, but when the group's referee had to depart for a family emergency, an alternate should have been found sooner are all helpful pieces of information. These are great take aways that can be used not just for your next meeting, but for everyone to improve their own effectiveness.
Reviewing what went well, and what didn't in a meeting, is an important aspect of making future meetings better. For informal assessments, this can take mere moments, but even in a formal setting where you might spend 20 to 30 minutes discussing this, there are almost always important feedback items found along the way. By reviewing your meetings in retrospect, you not only drive yourself and your attendees on improving, but you do so over time to not just raise the bar for the next meeting, but also for all meetings in the future.
Download this free Post Meeting Review resources from the Ministry of Bits website.