A study in the US has discovered that ‘71% [of] meetings are unproductive and inefficient.’ To ensure your business meeting is always fruitful, it’s vital to adopt principles of effective meetings. By following the suggested meeting workflow below, you can keep your meetings relevant, successful and constructive, not just saving your company time but improving performance.

In short, your business meeting workflow should comprise of:

1. Preparation
2. Launch
3. Goals
4. Reports
5. Actions
6. Discuss and agree
7. Close

By preparing the meeting ahead of time, everyone will be equipped to speak about their designated actions and tactics as required. Prior to meeting, invite staff members to update their progress on any actions that have been assigned to them that have been informed by the organisation goals.

With advantageous software like Workfacta, the preparation is automatically taken care of as the software assigns responsibilities to each section of the meeting workflow.

Launch the meeting with a short time for general news such as staff movements, updates and any relevant, affective news.

Run time: 5 minutes

This section invites a status update of all goals and is not a place to launch into details and minutia but rather an opportunity for team members to flag where they might not reach the set goals by exception.

This is an exceptional opportunity for managers and team leaders to review how often goals are being met and where efforts are falling down, or where any stopgaps can be filled. This step provides the freedom for managers to engage critical thinking to see how the team are performing concerning the annual or quarterly goals.

Workfacta provides a handy “discuss” button that reschedules a discussion point within the meeting about how the tasks can be met, reassigned or abolished.

One of our business app’s most notable core features is the planning aspect and the very clear-cut feature of encouraging the following through on how to turn those goals into tangible results.

Plus, there’s an empowering feature where Workfacta can produce a goal score based on several inputs (such as actions completed etc.) so the whole team, not just managers, can clearly ascertain how likely they are to achieve the set goals.

Run time: 5 to 10 minutes

This is a great opportunity to discuss highlights and operational reports at a team level. Documents can be attached and imported to be reviewed as a team, encouraging transparency and keeping your processes agile and monitoring progress in real-time.

Workfacta is ideal for agile teams who want to keep across how likely they are to hit targets and goals and act on issues in real-time, rather than waiting until the end of the reporting period.

By now, you should be no more than a third of the way through the allocated time of the meetings.

Run time: 5 to 10 minutes

A core component of a solid business meeting is where everyone’s assigned actions are reviewed, and team members are given a chance to explain and expand on any overdue or missed tasks. Any overdue actions can be addressed at this point and reassigned, discussed or rescheduled.

Any actions assigned to a team member is automatically shuffled to the meeting process, so tasks and responsibilities are always clear to staff. Plus, it gives meeting leaders an easy and streamlined way to keep across everyone’s workload and get the required outcomes.

Workfacta keeps everyone on the pulse of execution, and staff become more diligent and responsible for their tasks, tactics, and objectives.

Run time: 10 minutes

Following on from actions, this step is a generous opportunity to problem solve any overdue actions.

In the Workfacta system, there’s a “solve” button for team members to hit when there’s room for resolving a task.

Any challenges and general discussion can be sent here, and issues are solved as a team, as opposed to a manager just taking charge and making decisions. This helps all team members feel engaged and invested in the solution.

It’s expected that this takes up around fifty per cent of your allocated meeting time.

Run time: 20 to 30 minutes

With the meeting at its conclusion, everyone is required to submit a score (between 0 and 10) on how they viewed the meeting went and how planning and solutions have gone.

This is an important reflection for everyone to solidify an experience of an effective meeting and be prepared to improve future meetings.

Run time: 2 minutes

Follow the above workflow next time you have a business meeting and notice the difference.