Whether you work remotely or in the office, the meeting must go on. On average, almost 50% of the typical workweek is spent in meetings, which calls for a necessary conversation around ineffective meetings. Meetings often get a bad rap for seeming unnecessary or for conveying information that could have been communicated via email. With effective leadership and a defined meeting type, however, getting together with your team can result in expedited progress and a strengthened team. More importantly, choosing the right meeting can help you and your team effectively solve problems, communicate ideas, and get on the same page.
There are a dozen or more informal types of meetings and meeting styles that serve different purposes. Each type, when executed well, should hold your team's attention and foster collaboration, no matter what the subject matter is or how long your meeting runs. No type of meeting is superior to another - instead, a mix of various types of meetings is important to keep your team motivated and interested in making progress or bettering their professional skills.
Let’s dive into some of the main types of meetings to understand how business meetings can function differently and how you can best run them.
Common Team Meeting Types
1. Planning meeting
A planning meeting is used to discuss future projects. During a meeting centered around a project, the group involved with the initiative should discuss what the upcoming project will look like including the schedule, timeline, and hard due dates. It is important to have clear objectives and a shared vision, as well as metrics to guide the team and measure your success.
2. Stand-up meeting
Also known as progress checks or status updates, stand-up meetings are quick and meant to keep your team up to date on individual and group progress. By each team member sharing a quick update about what they have been working on, the group can understand what’s been completed and what still needs to be accomplished. Stand-ups are crucial in fostering true accountability and carving out time for acknowledging progress. These meetings can take place every day, once a week, or whenever necessary.
3. Retrospective meeting
After a project is accomplished, a retrospective meeting can be facilitated. Retrospective meetings help a team recap a project or quarter and document the process. During the debrief, group members should be encouraged to share what was successful and what could have been improved during the process.
4. Information-sharing meeting
Information-sharing meetings should be scheduled when the team needs further education on topics relevant or important to their work or the organization’s culture. These meetings often manifest as training, webinars, or presentations. Guest speakers, visual aids, and questions or surveys serve as ways to keep team members engaged and interested in the subject matter. Information-sharing meetings should result in the group gaining greater knowledge about how they can improve in their roles and be successful team players.
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5. Decision-making meeting
When a conclusion, solution, or action needs to be agreed upon, a decision-making meeting should be scheduled. These meetings are focused on discovering and deciding on the right moves for a particular situation. Decision-making meetings often involve a team presenting options to a leader who will ultimately make the decision. These meetings should take into account any obstacles and critically examine the pros and cons of implementing the particular decision.
6. Problem-solving meeting
Problem-solving meetings entail one pressing issue and the meeting revolves around resolving it. The team should discuss how the problem arose and how it should be corrected. Getting to the root cause of the issue is imperative to be able to administer the correct solution rather than applying Band-Aids to the symptoms of the issue. To close out a successful problem-solving meeting, teammates should talk about how they as a team can prevent the same problem from happening again, and work to put any structures in place to ensure the issue is settled.
7. Team-building meeting
Team-building meetings focus on the group’s dynamic and creating a more connected community at work. By getting to know their colleagues better, team members can improve trust and passion for their work and company goals. Using activities can help your team accept a more exciting and relaxed meeting while learning more about their colleagues and ultimately driving cohesion.
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8. Innovation meeting
Innovation meetings or brainstorming sessions involve group members who work closely and well together on technical and creative elements of a project or upcoming initiative. Bouncing ideas off of each other is what innovation meetings call for, as long as a general direction of the conversation is well-defined. Brainstorming sessions are often necessary for teams who are called to invent a new design/product or create content. Innovation meetings are freeform, therefore creative ideas should not be snuffed out but considered and explored.
Choosing The Right Meeting
When changing your meeting dynamics by using different meeting styles, choosing the correct meeting type is based primarily on intent. What is the true purpose of getting the team together? What's the objective or issue at hand? What action needs to take place that cannot occur over email?
Team dynamics and participants also must be considered. Think about the personalities, meeting roles, and duties of the folks who are in the group. Who has particularly valuable insight on the subject? Who brings a unique perspective? Consider the complexities of your team to host a meeting that calls on everyone's expertise and encourages productive discussion.
Also, consider the cadence of your meetings and plan accordingly depending on future events and meetings. If you've held only stand-up meetings for two weeks, perhaps creating a more extensive meeting schedule would help determine how to fully meet your organization's needs while keeping your meeting styles dynamic.
Taking into account the method of your meeting can change your meeting options. If your team tends to meet virtually, it is important to note that more creative and freeform meeting types may produce results dissimilar to those of in-person meetings. Innovation or team-building meetings are effective online, yet participation and discussion tend to be more minimal. In contrast, information-based meetings such as info-sharing meetings, retrospective meetings, and team-building meetings that include engaging content can be just as impactful when held virtually. If your team attends meetings both online and in-person, choosing the right style for the form of the meeting can make for more efficient progress.
Final Thoughts
Knowing that the way workers feel about the effectiveness of meetings correlates with their satisfaction with their jobs, respecting your team’s time by scheduling intentional and defined meetings can encourage team members to perceive meetings differently. It is important to consider the main objective of your proposed meeting and the dynamics of your team when defining your meeting style. As you plan your next meeting, think through what is needed for it to be impactful and communicate with your team what the goal of the meeting is and how, with their input, it will lead to greater success.
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