We monitor and evaluate EVERYTHING it seems these days. How many “Likes” did my post get? What combination of keywords works best for a particular SEO? What content does my blog need to get the most hits? #What #hashtag #should #I #use #to #get #my #tweet #retweeted #?
Similarly, we have reports and evaluations that we must submit to our supervisors. Sometimes these are project/product based (and are backed up by the power we gain from our analytics) and sometimes they are personal—how are we doing within our position? What is our role in the company? How can we improve?
We evaluate for a reason. It show us where we stand in multiple contexts, and more importantly, how we can improve. Which brings me to my question:
Why don’t we hold the efficiency and productivity of our meetings to the same M&E standard as everything else?
I don’t know, perhaps it seems like overkill. Do we really need to grade our meetings on top of everything else?
Absolutely.
What do people complain about most in the workplace? Meetings. The number of them. The length of them. The amount of work you COULD have gotten done while attending them. So why not try to improve them?
My suggestion is quick. It is dirty. It is +/∆
AKA...Positive/Change. Meaning—at the end of each meeting, people take 1-2 minutes to write one positive thing that came out of the meeting and one aspect of the meeting that could be changed and HOW. (The how is the important part. Otherwise, you are just whining. Nobody likes a whiner). The facilitator of that meeting then collects all the +/∆ slips, reviews them, and decides what suggestions they should adopt for the next meeting.
OR…
The team leader could report those suggestions back out to their team to see how the proposed improvements are prioritized by the group. Allowing your team members to constructively voice their opinions about meetings, and encouraging them to choose a peer-generated strategy to adopt in the next group setting will improve the time spent in meetings.
ForceRank can help with that.
