How to Run an Effective Meeting in 12 Steps

We ran an experiment to see whether a nine day fortnight would work for the team members here at Charlie. Spoiler alert — it did. As part of this research, we also decided to review our approach to meetings. What we realised was that many meetings weren’t as effective as they could be.

As a curious group of people, we poured our energy into researching how to run an effective meeting. Our goal was to cut down the number of meetings, make them more manageable, and make sure that every meeting was as effective as it could be.

The end result of this is that we learned almost everything there is to know about how to run an effective meeting within a small business. And we wanted to share that knowledge with you.

This guide is everything we know about running effective, productive, and successful meetings. We hope it allows you to change your meeting culture for the better.

What makes a meeting effective?

Before we can start running better meetings, we first need to figure out what exactly makes them effective in the first place.

Your team might have extra measures of success, but in general the most effective meetings:

• Have a purpose — everyone knows what the end goal is
• Run on time — there’s enough time to discuss everything fully without going over
• Are inclusive — there are multiple ways that people can take part in the discussion or decision-making process to promote diversity and inclusion
• Achieve the desired goal — you reach a conclusion or know what the next step is.

You can think of ineffective meetings as the opposite. Bad meetings have no purpose, last too long, are uncomfortable to participate in, and don’t help you get any closer to your goals. Most of them could also have simply been an email.

How to run an effective meeting in 12 steps

Now we know what to aim for, it’s easier to change the way you approach meetings within your small business. If your goal is to host more engaging and more productive meetings, here’s how to do it in 12 steps.

1. Set a clear purpose

Decide what the purpose of the meeting is. Do you need to brainstorm ideas for a new project? Make a decision about where to open your next office? Agree what your hybrid work policy should be?

Whatever the goal is, confirm it now and plan the entire meeting around it. The meeting is there to help you discuss ideas and come up with a solution or answer — so let it be guided by the path you need to take.

2. Choose the right type of meeting

You can host a meeting about any topic, and there are plenty of different types of meetings to accommodate this. Some topics are better handled in a one-on-one meeting vs. a company-wide meeting, so pay close attention to who needs to be involved and the best way to approach it.

Common types of meetings include:

• Team meeting — a regular get-together for you to talk about team issues and achievements
• Company-wide meeting — an opportunity to talk to everyone about key issues or moments to celebrate
• One-on-one meeting — a one-to-one meeting is a discussion between two people, often between a manager and employee or between two team members
• Brainstorming session — an idea-generating meeting that often involves a whiteboard or sticky notes
• Project meetings — a regular meeting to discuss project milestones, challenges, and opportunities.

There’s a meeting type for everything you could want to make a decision about. Finding the right environment for your discussion is all about knowing what you want to achieve, who should be there, and what your decision-making process involves.

3. Invite the right attendees

You can’t have a meeting without attendees, but often we invite way too many people than we need to. Stick to inviting only the meeting participants that you require to have a healthy, in-depth conversation and make a decision at the end of it.

Decide who your key participants are and send out meeting invites to them. Depending on the type of meeting, this could involve your project management team, project stakeholders, your new hire, or the entire company.

4. Prepare a meeting agenda

Every meeting should have an agenda, even if it’s short and sweet. Prepare a list of agenda items, assemble them into an order that makes sense, and send this to all meeting participants ahead of time.

Your meeting agenda should contain the date and time of the meeting, the topics of discussion, and who is leading that discussion topic. Examples of agenda items include icebreakers, project updates, space for ideas and suggestions, and a section for conclusions and next steps.

5. Choose the right meeting space

Your meeting environment matters. Whether you’re hosting an in-person, hybrid, or virtual meeting, the space you choose can impact the way people feel and interact.

6. Assign roles

It’s impossible to take on every role within the meeting yourself. While it definitely does happen, it’s best if you can designate specific roles to meeting attendees.

For most discussions, it’s a good idea to have both a facilitator and a note taker. The facilitator’s job is to help the meeting run smoothly and to guide participants through the agenda. The note taker’s role is to take accurate meeting notes and record any decisions that were made.

7. Stick to the schedule

Time management in meetings is crucial, as everyone has a busy schedule that should be respected. Meetings often run over time, causing a knock-on effect. Aim to have your meetings run on time so not only is this meeting effective, but any following ones can be too.

Think about how long your meeting should take, and make sure you add a buffer to the meeting time when you schedule it. Use your agenda to help map out a timeline of your meeting and assign time to each item on it, along with space for questions and discussion before the end.

8. Encourage participation from everyone

Effective meetings aren’t dominated by one voice, but they give everyone the chance to contribute equally. Design your meetings in a way that encourages everyone to get involved, whether they’re a loud extrovert or a quiet introvert.

Ask the facilitator to pay attention to who is speaking and who isn’t, and thoughtfully try to include people by asking them questions directly in a welcoming way. Offer additional ways to contribute — like sharing opinions before the meeting, voting in a live poll, or using the “hand raise” feature to signal their choice.

9. Define the next steps

Before any effective meeting ends, the group first recaps what has happened and sets out any next steps. This takes your meeting from a basic discussion into a vehicle for change.

Agree any future steps that need taking and turn them into an action plan. Assign each action to a meeting participant and ask them to keep you updated on progress. If a key decision was made, check in with the group that this was their final verdict to avoid confusion.

10. Write and share meeting minutes

Your note taker should be doing an excellent job of recording notes during the meeting. Afterwards, they should turn them into meeting minutes and distribute them to the group.

Excellent meeting notes are a record of what happened and when, who was involved in the decision-making process, and what the end result was. They should be clear, accurate, and easy to read.

11. Follow up with action items

Most successful meetings have several action items and outcomes that need to be delivered. Make it someone’s job to catch up with the right people and make sure that these things happen.

If you can, set a deadline for any action steps in the meeting minutes themselves. This creates an automatic deadline for the assigned person to complete their task. Either follow up with meeting participants yourself, or assign this role to an administrator.

12. Encourage feedback

Your approach to meetings will change as your company grows and develops. What works now may not work in the future. It should be part of your commitment to effective meetings to check in regularly and ask for feedback.

At the end of your next meeting, ask the participants if they have any feedback. Offer people a way to share their thoughts anonymously, like a virtual suggestion box. Gather any feedback, review it, and act on it if you can. Share what you’re doing with everyone, so they’re aware that you take their feedback seriously. Continue this throughout your organisation as part of your move towards a feedback culture.

6 Common meeting mistakes and how to avoid them

We all run into meeting mishaps from time to time, but there are some common mistakes that we can avoid through better planning, knowledge, and confidence.

Let’s explore some of the main meeting mistakes we see in small businesses and how you can avoid them.

1. Lack of preparation

It’s not uncommon to show up to a meeting with no idea what the topic of discussion is. This typically happens if the meeting organiser is inexperienced, or if the meeting has been scheduled in a rush.

To avoid this:

• Prepare and share a clear agenda before the meeting
• Gather any papers and presentations you need ahead of time
• Share reports and slides with attendees in advance, if it makes sense to

2. Not making progress

Some meetings can feel like a waste of time. When you’ve gathered a group of decision-makers in one place, meetings that don’t make progress aren’t just time-wasters but they’re expensive too.

Here’s how to stop this from happening:

• Make sure that relevant decision-makers are invited to your meeting
• Review your agenda to check that the purpose of the meeting is clear
• Ask clear questions that guide participants to make a decision

3. Dominating voices and poor inclusivity

Ever been in a meeting where it’s the same voices being heard over and over again? A good meeting facilitator can shut this down with a few ground rules and invite more participation from others at the table.

To make your meetings more inclusive:

• Offer different ways that people can participate, other than talking out loud
• Ask your facilitator to keep an eye on “speak time” and try to keep it even
• Encourage people to get involved by asking questions that they can answer confidently

4. Meetings that go off-topic

It’s normal for conversations to head off-track every now and again, but it becomes a problem if it’s taking up too much of your valuable time.

Here’s how to keep your meetings on track:

• Refer back to the agenda items and the purpose of the meeting
• Politely interrupt people that are steering the conversation off-topic
• Ask your facilitator to actively manage the meeting

5. Meetings that overrun

Nobody likes to miss their next obligation because a meeting has run over time. Fix this problem quickly to avoid a knock-on effect on employee productivity throughout the company.

To avoid this:

• Clearly set out the meeting timeline on the agenda
• Schedule an appropriate amount of time at the end of the meeting as a “buffer”
• Encourage team members to schedule meetings for 20 or 45 minutes, instead of 30 or 60 minutes

6. Unnecessary meetings

Some meetings can simply be an email or a Slack message — especially recurring meetings that cover topics you don’t need to discuss that week or month. The end result is a waste of time and a negative impact on people’s mood.

Here’s how to cut down on unnecessary meetings:

• Review recurring meetings often to check they are still relevant
• Encourage people to cancel meetings if they aren’t required
• Promote the use of asynchronous communication over live meetings

How we run effective meetings at Charlie

As a small business ourselves, we’ve studied everything there is to know about how to run an effective meeting. We’ve learned all the tips and tricks, and run experiments in-house to see what works best for our team members.

After plenty of research and feedback, here’s what we do now:

• Share an agenda before meetings — give everyone the knowledge they need to make decisions
• Let each team manage their own meetings — autonomy helps employees feel a sense of control and ownership over their work
• Challenge unnecessary meetings — say no to meetings you don’t need to attend
• Limit the number of company-wide meetings — give everyone enough time to focus on their most valuable work
• Host a monthly strategy meetup to give extra context — share insights into the reasons why we’re doing what we do
• Have regular no-meetings days — allow extra time for deep focus work.

Although this is how meetings at Charlie work now, there’s nothing to say this won’t change next year or even next month. Be open to consistently improving the way you run meetings to make them the most effective they can be.

Enjoy more productive meetings

There’s no secret sauce on how to run an effective meeting — it’s all about time management, preparation, and promoting engagement. Use this guide to help you transform your meetings from average to impressive, and change the meeting culture at your small business for the better.

As you review your approach to meetings, one area you can focus on is writing great meeting minutes. Our meeting minutes template can help you produce clear, accurate, and easy-to-read meeting notes in no time.

‍