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Alice Bumgarner, Moderator
Alice Bumgarner, editor of Administrative Professional Today and contributing writer for Executive Leadership, has been writing about workplace and family issues for 13 years. Her articles have appeared in dozens of publications, including http://Salon.com, http://MSN.com, Continental magazine, Southern Living and Town & Country. She lives in Durham, N.C., with her husband, two daughters and dog Milo.
Submit a question for the Admin Pro Forum at Admin-Pro@NIBM.net.
Question: "I work at a company that loves meetings. I support a C-level executive and am always looking for ways to reduce the amount of meetings he needs to attend. I’ve tried reducing the length of meetings, sending delegates, changing the frequency (quarterly instead of monthly), handling more topics via e-mail and scheduling them over lunch or dinner. Every few months, we review all scheduled meetings to see whether we can cancel anything. And yet there still are not enough hours in the day to accommodate all the high- priority meetings. Does anyone have additional suggestions for eliminating the amount of meetings?" — Angela Van Cleve
See Comments Below
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said this on 13 Jul 2009 11:31:23 AM EST
One thing our organization tried was having no meetings on Fridays. Our executives blocked out the entire day as unavailable, and no meetings were scheduled. Until your boss or the company as a whole gets on board with reducing the meetings, you are fighting a losing battle. My boss frequently tells me we need to reduce the meetings, but instead, she usually has me trying to squeeze in even more. Good luck to you!
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said this on 13 Jul 2009 1:41:57 PM EST
One approach is to change the mindset from "information sharing" to "solution creation." ALL meetings must have an agenda - if you don't have a true purpose with specific issues, then there is no need for a meeting. The agenda needs to list the issue at hand. Each person gets the agenda in advance. The agenda also has a step where each person is to express his/her proposed solution. Then the agenda calls for a summary of the chosen solution, next steps for implementation and who will handle and report back. If all you need to do is share information, you need an email, not a meeting. For issues to big to handle in one session, then the agenda has a place for "expected outcomes" from this meeting. The meeting moderator needs to buy into this and keep all attendees focused on getting to a solution. This approach has helped us cut down on meetings just for the point of gathering.
We are also just starting out with a sharepoint site in which issues and related documents are loaded and people add their ideas. We hope that having this type of discussion and review of ideas online will help us cut the time of our actual meetings. It's very new to us, but looks like it has promise. I also really like Anna's comment on no Friday meetings. Even no meetings on Friday afternoons would be good. |
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said this on 17 Jul 2009 4:27:03 PM EST
I also have "no meeting Fridays" for my two bosses. However, Anna is correct, unless others who schedule are also on board, it doesn't always work out. But, many times most of their Friday's stay open - - this is especially nice in the summer time....I also use the "private" option in Outlook Calendar to lock down "buffer" times. I try to put a 1/2 hour in between all meetings, so back-to-back meetings are minimal. This allows for a small break for my boss in between meetings, as well as fluff if meetings run late. The private option shows the time is blocked on the calendar, but no one can see what for (just you and your boss or anyone who has editor rights)...so other admins are less likely to book over something they can't see....that's worked pretty well. Hope this helps!!!!
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