It seems so simple yet for some reason too many meetings have agendas that are not carefully planned, not adhered to, or go on without an agenda at all. Despite the fact the simply having a clear agenda is one of the most recommended steps to having a good meeting.
Once the meeting starts, even if you have an agenda, sticking to it is a whole new challenge. Some topics take longer than expected, discussions go on tangents, people want to add their input and have their say. It's all too easy to get off track, but very difficult to get back on track.
The truth is there is no one size fits all solution to having a good meeting because there is not just one type of meeting. There are in face many types of meetings for many types of organizations that require different strategies to manage.
There is the standup, the retro, the status meeting, the decision meeting, the brainstorm, the team meeting, the all hands, the board meeting just to name a few. Some meetings are intended to be free flowing and generate lots of ideas. Other meetings are intended to be orderly and generate decisions. For some meetings being on time is essential, while others you actually need the flexibility of going off topic to be creative.
The first step to having a good meeting is to first understand what type of meeting you are having and adopt the right mindset and tools to have the best type of meeting you intend to have.
At Meet Robbie, we're focused on the "taking care of business" meeting. This is a meeting where you have to take care of the ongoing business of your team and organization and make decisions. These meetings typically require the most structure yet are the most hassle to organize and keep records of.
By using Meet Robbie, we provide you with all the tools out of the box to run these meetings with less time, effort, and hassle. We do this by taking parliamentary principles that have been around for over 100 years and providing them as a meeting operating system for you to run these meetings without any legwork. What this provides is the ability to do 4 key things:
Have a clear agenda and stick to it.
Raise and discuss issues.
Make decisions fairly.
Keep track of what happened and what to do next.
By taking care of these 4 essentials your recurring meeting gets into what we call the virtuous meeting cycle.
Come try it out by signing up for our pilot.
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