Mastering Productive and Effective Weekly Meetings for Tech Executives

Gaining the Technology Leadership Edge: How to Run Productive and Effective Weekly Meetings

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Are you ready? Let’s get started. So today I’m here all alone in the studio, and I figured we would talk about how to run productive and effective weekly meetings that won’t waste anyone’s time and will keep upper management in the loop. Now, to start, it’s really important to know why regular staff meetings are so important to your department. One of the things is that it can help your team members stay informed on what’s happening.

They feel included in the decision-making processes and ultimately it creates a strong sense of collaboration amongst your staff. You’re letting them know the details of what your boss is asking you to accomplish, you’re filling them in on the long and short-term strategies that your department is trying to execute on, and you’re gaining buy-in from your staff by taking their feedback. In the end, your strategies will only be stronger because of the groupthink that will go on when having your meetings.

So now that we understand the importance of weekly meetings, let’s dive into how you can ensure that they’re not going to waste everyone’s time. Now, the first thing you need to do is set an agenda ahead of time and stick to it. Setting an agenda ahead of time for a weekly staff meeting is crucial for ensuring it doesn’t turn into a waste of everyone’s time. Having a clear purpose and plan for the meeting allows everyone to know exactly what topics will be discussed, who will speak on each topic, and how long they have to speak.

This provides structure to the meeting and it keeps everyone focused on the tasks at hand. Additionally, sticking to this agenda helps ensure that all relevant topics are discussed promptly and no one feels like their ideas or thoughts were not heard or validated. So important to be heard and validated. Now the next thing is to focus on actionable items that are relevant to everyone in attendance. It’s really important to focus on actionable items in a weekly staff meeting and they have to be relevant to everyone in attendance. It ensures that everyone can contribute and understand the topics being discussed and how their role affects the team’s goals.

Additionally, focusing on actionable items can help the team stay motivated and make progress towards reaching their objectives. Doing this also helps avoid nonessential conversations that can take up valuable time and distract from the main goals of the meeting. Now, keep the meetings well-structured by having a designated leader, probably you, and making sure each person only speaks when they have something relevant to add.

Keeping a meeting well-structured by having a designated leader and ensuring each person only speaks when they have something relevant to add is important to ensure the meeting stays on track and is efficient. Efficiency is key. Nobody likes having their time wasted, so having one person lead the conversation keeps everyone focused and on task, while allowing for a meaningful dialogue between all the participants.

Additionally, suppose each person only speaks when they have something relevant to add. In that case, you’re going to prevent conversations from getting off track and you’re going to allow for time for everyone’s ideas to be considered. Nobody gets left out this way. Now, you can also ensure that everyone understands their roles by clarifying which tasks need to be done by whom. A manager needs to ensure that everyone understands their roles in the meeting by clarifying what tasks need to be completed by whom.

Doing this helps keep all participants organized and accountable, as everyone will understand their responsibilities and what needs to be done. Additionally, it allows team members to be shown that their contributions are valued, as each of them will have a clear idea of how they themselves can impact the meeting outcome. By doing this, it also helps foster an environment of collaboration and trust between the manager and their team members.

Record decisions made during the meeting and follow up with an email or Slack message later if needed. It’s very important to record all decisions that you make during the meeting. Make sure you follow up with a summary, email, or Slack message later if necessary. Doing this will help everyone involved to stay on top of any action items decided in the meetings, and they will provide a reference point for future conversations.

It’s also very useful for clarifying agreed-upon points and ensuring that all participants are aligned. Recording decisions also serves as an effective form of accountability and communication, helping to ensure that tasks are completed promptly. Now, end each meeting with a recap and summarize action items for the following week. Very important to end each meeting with that recap and the summary because doing this helps ensure that everyone involved is on the same page and understands what tasks need to be completed and when.

Additionally, it creates an organized tracking of progress and allows team members to be held accountable for their actions. Summarizing action items at the end of each meeting also helps keep teams focused and motivated, allowing them to stay on track with their goals. Now, I’m going to recommend to you my own proprietary system called Pace for meetings. The Pace meeting is a tool used by teams to increase their productivity and help them reach their goals. It’s an acronym that stands for productivity, Accountability, Clarity, and execution.

These four elements provide the framework for effective meetings, helping teams stay on track and achieve their objectives. It also serves as a way to create structure within the team and ensure that tasks are completed on time. By utilizing this tool, teams can maximize productivity while maintaining clear communication throughout the entire process. Every month, each team member is going to set monthly goals that they want to achieve. These goals will be reviewed and assessed at each meeting. Where are they? What progress have they made? Are they done?

Allowing the team to track progress and offer support when needed is going to be really important. Bonuses are often awarded based on goal completion percentages, which means that it’s important for all team members to agree with the goals set by each individual. Additionally, it helps to create a sense of accountability within the team as members are held responsible for achieving their agreed-upon goals.

A key component of Pace meetings is discussing what is working and what isn’t. By doing this, the team can identify any issues that need to be addressed and develop solutions together. After identifying any problems, a task can be assigned, along with a specific stakeholder responsible for completing it. This helps to break down larger tasks into more manageable chunks while keeping all team members accountable for their part.

By incorporating Pace meetings into your team’s workflow, you can stay organized and ensure everyone is working towards the same goal. This is a very important and effective part of the Pace meeting system. By discussing what’s working, you are celebrating the successes of your business. By discussing what is not working, you’re staying on top of your organization’s problems. This keeps key trouble in front so everyone remains aware of those key problems.

The stakeholder will be responsible for sourcing who needs to work on the issue. You see, you can assign anyone as a stakeholder. I mean, if you have a programming problem and you assign one of your technicians as a stakeholder, it doesn’t mean they’re going to write program code suddenly. It just means that they’re going to source the correct programmer who can fix the issue. They are going to be the project manager for the process.

And this is how you get things fixed quickly and show the rest of your company that you take these things very seriously. This is one of the things that I used as a CTO that always got me great results. It also enabled my CEO to see exactly what we were working on. Because the last part of a Pace meeting is to send out the Pace report to management. What that does is it recaps the Pace meeting and it’s given to upper management in an email. It’s an effective communication tool, helping keep the team and upper management on the same page.

This report helps the team get support from higher-ups and keeps them in the loop about any big issues or tasks that need to be addressed. It also outlines who is responsible for handling said tasks, ensuring that everyone knows their roles. The Pace Report to Management encourages collaboration between team members and upper management, allowing effective problem-solving and success. I mean, if you keep the things that are talked about in your meetings completely secret, you don’t have any transparency. And without transparency, you never know who might have information that can help you solve the problem.

Send out that Pace management report every single meeting. So that’s all I have for you today. Give these things a try, and you’re going to see that it’ll improve your staff relations as well as your relationship with upper management. Thanks for tuning in to gaining the technology leadership edge. We hope that you’ve had a great time with us learning everything you need to know to stay ahead of the technology curve.

Remember, be curious, be updated on all the latest trends, and show them who’s boss. Until next time, we’ll be back with plenty more techie tips and tricks so you can stay on top of your game. See ya.