“Fun” and “productive” may not be words you naturally associate with meetings, but it’s time to be the change you want to see!
1. Have a clear and succinct agenda
Prepare in advance so that everyone knows what’s being covered and what (if anything) they need to prepare. Breaking down the meeting into sections also helps people see progression, makes it easier to identify when a topic is starting to be over-discussed, and keeps you to time/budget/attention spans.
If multiple people run meetings, or you want to systemise your approach with clients, it’s worth putting together a quick branded page or template that can be easily edited with the points for each meeting. This also gives people something to take away easily or review ahead of time so they have some context.
2. Set guidelines
Creating specific rules for the meeting lead and participants can help speed things up – just like a meeting equivalent of your brand guidelines.
For example, limiting decks to a maximum number of slides, banning people just reading their slides out loud, and having some points to identify when a meeting should be an email instead. A single page document can work really well for this, but be careful to hit the right tone so it comes across in a positive and helpful way.
3. Make really good biscuits mandatory (really!)
(Or if biscuits aren’t your thing, pick another snack). Nothing cheers people up more in meetings than the thought of good snacks. Plus it’s scientific fact that biscuits help you concentrate 😉
4. Gamify it
Finding the right balance, situation and audience here is key. You don’t want it to feel condescending, and it should be genuinely fun and relevant.
It could be something like collecting points and having a scoreboard, a quick doodle contest, or a question where the closest correct answer wins.
Gamifying is particularly useful for non-mandatory meetings where you want to incentivise people to stay to the end, especially if there are multiple departments involved.
5. Have entertaining visuals
This is especially important if you’re presenting something. Images/concepts will be more memorable and you’ll find it easier to hold the audience’s attention. It could be adding photos of your dog to slides, memes, interesting use of design visuals. Avoid word clouds and 90s clipart.
6. Make digital notes
Take notes on a laptop (or record the meeting and use voice to text tech) to cut out steps of typing up notes or forgetting what was said. It also means there’s less scope for confusion and things being missed.
7. Pick a good space
This is especially important if your meeting is a creative or long one, because there’s nothing worse than being forced to think or concentrate in a space that’s “wrong.”
The temperature should be comfortable, as should the chairs, and ideally it should be a more interesting space than a table and plain white walls – without being too distracting. If you’re looking for a meeting room in the Nottingham area, we may have just the space!
And that’s a wrap! If you’ve got more tips on how to make meetings more productive and interesting, we’d love to hear them – please drop a comment below.