8 tips to meet up to 90% more effectively.

Yuri Bobbert and Hans Mulder | November 1, 2022

Organizations form for people to work together and create results that they cannot achieve alone. Collaboration is the cornerstone and foundation on which organizational success is built. Within organizations, teams are the most dominant form in which complex problems are tackled and solved. Yet everyone knows from experience that working in teams can sometimes be invigorating, while at other times it is very frustrating. We spend a lot of time in meetings and unfortunately we also waste a lot of our time on meetings.

Research with: IBM, Boeing, EADS and ING GroupTeams have been able to meet the challenges of collaboration through the use of advanced information technologies. A particularly successful example is the so-called Group Support System (GSS). A set of tools that allow teams to co-create insights, solutions, plans, and more by supporting their collaborative efforts in generating ideas, converging ideas, organizing ideas, voting on ideas, and building consensus. GSS represents one of the few examples of a technology that was originally conceived by academic researchers and then successfully came to market. Early systems such as GroupSystems and Group Explorer showed the potential of this type of technology. Applied research in the field showed that organisations such as IBM, Boeing, EADS and ING Groep were able to achieve productivity and person-hour savings of between 50% and 90%. Despite the fact that many organizations apply meetings and research well, there are usually also many 'meeting frustrations'.

The biggest meeting frustrationsThe meeting landscape has changed drastically in recent years. Many organizations have embraced online meetings. In addition, more attention has also been paid to offline meetings. For both options, there are usually a number of frustrations. To remove the frustrations, we have described a number of important aspects further in this article. The biggest meeting frustration top 10 is:

- Lack of a good president
- No clear agenda (no objective)
- Meetings take too long
- Too little fun, boring and mind-numbing
- Unnecessary meetings without purpose
- Law of decibels, vocal people dominate
- Unsafe environment, mutual tensions
- Distractions during the meeting
- Participants who do not adhere to the meeting topic
- Talking through each other

Several factors play an important role in naming a meeting successfully, including aspects such as involvement and fun. An effective meeting should contain several important components. In this article we give 8 tips to save up to 56% time and to meet and research up to 90% more effectively. Then to consider that the average manager spends 25 to 80 percent of his time on meetings, the savings within an average organization can be made quickly.

The scientific path to greater effectivenessResearch from IBM shows that meetings can already be up to 89% more effective with the help of just a few key additions. But why is meeting so important? Some important aspects of meetings are:

- Reaching consensus
- Strengthen performance and relationships
- Ensuring growth and goals
- Structuring the organization
- Deepening topics and solving problems
- Making decisions
- Grant ownership

The 8 components for a successful meetingThe next question is: what does a meeting need to be truly successful? For this, a meeting must contain at least the following 8 components:
- A good moderator/facilitator. This is necessary to ensure that the process runs smoothly and that everyone can optimally give his / her input. Several studies also show that the lack of a good moderator / facilitator is one of the biggest meeting frustrations.
- A clear meeting goal. The outcome of the meeting largely depends on the stated goal. It is important that the participants know what needs to be achieved during the meeting. Without a goal, the meetings will take many unnecessary side roads, which can take a lot of (unnecessary) time, so that effective results are not forthcoming.
- The right culture in which everyone is open to the input of others. The company culture is largely responsible for the success of meetings. It is important that everyone's opinion is accepted and that participants can openly contribute ideas.
- Provide structured two-way traffic. This seems obvious. Yet dominance, hierarchy and the law of decibels often make for a one-way street.
- Involvement of the participants. Make sure that participants are involved and can give input, otherwise there is a good chance that the participants will get distracted. The goal is to keep the involvement as high as possible. Therefore, give everyone the opportunity for input.
- A selection of the right participants. Adding unnecessarily many people can hold back the efficiency of a meeting. Therefore, make sure that the group is well selected and often try to keep it as compact as possible.
- Data reporting (minutes). This makes it possible to retrieve data so that long meeting processes are well recorded and data can be retrieved.
- Short but powerful. Meetings often take too long, causing participants to drop out. Make sure that the meeting stays with the core and that side roads are not used. Having a clear goal can already help for a facilitator to neatly cut off the side roads and go back to the core. This is also one of the biggest meeting frustrations.

A Group Support System like Meetingwizard helps to support meetings and investigations. Meetingwizard is used as software to achieve scientifically proven up to 89% more effectiveness and up to 56% time savings. With options such as anonymity, an automatically generated report, real-time meeting insights and statistics, consensus support and improved decision making, Group Support Systems are becoming almost indispensable in growing organizations.

Start a free trial today at: https://www.meetingwizard.nl/en/pricing