1. What is the goal of this meeting?
2. Can this meeting happen asynchronously?
3. Is this a high-priority or urgent task?
4. Do these types of meetings regularly run over the allotted time?
5. Do we run out of items to discuss in these types of meetings?

Once you’ve determined that you’ve got a weekly cadence for one project and another weekly cadence for an all-staff check-in, that doesn’t mean these have to be formatted in the same way.

You have to decide if the meeting is information seeking or information giving, which we alluded to earlier. This matters a lot when you’re determining how to best check-in.

These meetings fall into any of the following categories:

Seeking Information

• A kickoff meeting for a new project
• A project team meeting to discuss next steps
• Management meeting to check in on how teams are running
• A one-on-one with a direct report to check in on goals and tasks

For information giving meetings, those might be:

• A daily standup
• A project update
• A company’s annual report

Research shows that 15% of an organization's time is spent in meetings. Imagine moving that 15% towards actionable tasks that can increase revenue in your business? Less meetings and more money? An easy win.

A whopping 73% of people admit to multitasking during meetings. Let your employees spend more time doing their work and less time passively listening in.

1. Do create an agenda. Make sure everyone knows what will be covered in advance so they can attend better prepared.
2. Don’t leave room for questions at the end. Instead, use Slack or email for any follow-ups since there’s never enough time at the end of the meeting to get to everyone’s questions.
3. Do invite-only key players to a meeting. It’s much easier to communicate in smaller groups.
4. Don’t go over the allocated meeting time.