Everyone has a different idea of what a ‘Meeting’ is. It’s a very generic term we apply to any gathering of people in the company. Small, quick, meetings happen at CoachUp all the time and I actually encourage it. These involve a couple people gathering around a computer to resolve a problem / issue / question. The biggest time sink you can have is a larger meeting (read: more than 4 people) that involves unprepared people wasting everyone’s time.

Granted, sometimes it’s important to have larger meetings with multiple stakeholders involved. In this case, the secret to having a productive meeting is in the preparation. There should be one person who is responsible for leading the meeting and s/he should be responsible for sending out an agenda beforehand. The most important thing about the agenda is the goal of the meeting. The meeting should end with some type of resolution towards this goal. If you’re not planning prior to the meeting and making progress during the meeting, then you’re just wasting everyone’s time and you would be better off doing nothing.