Effective Staff Meetings: 3 Ways to Stay on Track

Although technology continues to change the face of the workplace, face-to-face meetings between team members is still a useful way to enable communication. Here are three simple techniques to help you hold effective staff meetings that meeting their objectives by staying on track.

1. The "Parking Lot"

Inevitably, someone will say something that leads the discussion down a side track. If you are not looking out for this, it's easy to waste valuable time, time that is now lost to the actual purpose of the meeting. To avoid this, I recommend a simple tool called the Parking Lot. This can take different forms, but it's really just a place to record topics that are important and should be discussed by the group—but not at this meeting.

A whiteboard, a flipchart, or even just a notepad held by the meeting leader, will all work well, although it's a good idea to have it visible to everyone—making the notebook the least attractive choice.

When the focus of the discussion is threatened, simply add the topic to the Parking Lot, with a commitment to schedule that discussion for another day. You may finish some meetings with an empty Parking Lot, while others will make it clear you have many other meetings ahead!

2. Some meeting participants constantly threaten to derail the meeting, simply by hogging the floor, and discussing side issues that are so far off track they don't even belong on the Parking Lot. As the meeting leader, you must rein these people in by making them accountable.

Some useful words to use are, "Bob, this is interesting but can you help me understand how it relates to the agenda item we're discussing?" If he has a logical tie-in, you can then invite the others to give their views. If not (and this is more likely!), you can then say, "OK, then in the interests of staying on schedule, let's get back on topic."

3. An effective agenda will specify start and finish times not only for the meeting as a whole, but for each agenda item. Suppose the item under discussion is supposed to finish at 2.30 p.m. It's now 2.27 p.m. and there's no sign of an end, you give the group two choices. You can continue this discussion and take another item off the agenda, or table this discussion for a later meeting.

You'll be surprised how often this will lead to a quick, and successful, conclusion to any discussion.

Your ability to conduct effective staff meetings will add greatly to your success as a manager. Try these three simple techniques and see how much they will help.


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Helen Wilkie is a professional keynote speaker, workshop leader and coach in the area of communication at work. For information about her services,
visit MHW Communications and see Helen's blog, Communi-keys, for more on meeting skills.