Meeting Success Strategies
This short document or list tells participants what will be discussed during a meeting.
What is an agenda?
Checking every notification the moment it appears can create this common interruption to focused work.
What is a distraction or busy work
This tells an employee when an assignment is expected to be completed.
What is a due date or deadline?
A proposal is due today and requires final submission. Under the Four-Part Priority Method, it belongs in this category.
What is Do?
Being active all day does not always equal this, which means producing meaningful progress or results.
What is productivity?
Inviting only these people helps keep a meeting focused and respects everyone’s time.
Who are people that need to contribute, decide or take action.
Work one meaningful priority at a time
Multitasking
Identifying this person prevents confusion about who is responsible for completing or coordinating a task.
Owner, accountable leader, task owner, lead
A report is important, but it is not due immediately and requires uninterrupted concentration. It belongs in this category.
What is Schedule?
Choosing to focus on a small number of important tasks
What is focus
Focus on work that moves an important outcome forward
What is Progress, Goal Setting or Clear expectations.
Creating two reports containing the same information is an example of this type of unnecessary effort.
What is duplicate work?
In addition to an owner and due date, employees need to understand this description of what successful completion should look like.
What is the expected result or desired outcome?
A responsibility must be completed, but another qualified team member is the appropriate owner. It belongs in this category.
What is Delegate?
Completing five easy, low-impact tasks while avoiding one important deadline may make a person look busy, but it does not demonstrate this skill.
What is prioritization?
Three important things for each follow up task
1) Action, 2) Owner and 3) Due Date
True or False: Responding to every Teams message immediately is always the best way to remain productive.
What is False
Constantly switching between messages and focused assignments can interrupt progress. Unless a message is urgent, setting designated times to check and respond can help protect focused work time.
When an employee receives two assignments that appear equally urgent
Priority, Prioritization, Ranking
A recurring report duplicates information already available in another approved report. It may belong in this category.
What is Defer or Eliminate?
Raise Blockers early and clarify competing demands?
What is communication
A conversation moves into troubleshooting that is unrelated to the meeting’s purpose. This technique allows the facilitator to capture the issue without letting it take over the meeting.
What is placing the topic in the parking lot, assigning a separate follow-up or tabling discussion to the end of the meeting allow others not require for troubleshooting to exit the meeting and use time effectively.
True or False: Doing several tasks at the same time always helps you finish faster and increase productivity
What is false
Switching between tasks can slow progress and increase mistakes. Focusing on one priority at a time can help complete work more effectively
A task has an owner and deadline, but progress is still delayed because the employee does not have access to a needed file or system. Clear expectations should have included this.
What are the required resources, information, or system access?
An important project not due today, but waiting until the deadline would turn it into an emergency. The best priority decision is this.
What is scheduling protected focus time to begin it before it becomes urgent?
You finish an assignment ahead of schedule and use the extra time to review the work for accuracy instead of immediately starting several new tasks. This demonstrates what productive habit?
What is completing and reviewing quality work before taking on additional priorities?
Productivity is not only about completing more tasks. It also means producing accurate, complete, and dependable results.