Using a Regular Meeting Schedule to Create Efficiency

Every company has the same basic functions—sales, marketing, product, operations, finance, etc. Organize regular meetings for each department or for major issue that require attention (e.g., pricing, customer relations). This becomes the process through which you manage the business. These meetings should be held at regular intervals (e.g., weekly) with a set agenda. I have suggested the agenda items, and the length, frequency and attendees for these meetings. If possible, these meetings should be held at the same time each week. Pick a day of the week when the team tends to be in the office.

“By having these meetings at regular intervals, you ensure that issues are addressed without harmful lag time.” 

These meetings have multiple purposes:

• Provide a consistent process for topics, updates and addressing issues.
• Create a consistent mechanism for communication.
• Remove ad hoc conversations about topics that distract you during the day.
• Provide a forum for negotiating and solving challenges, especially when a trend develops.
• Provide a forum for new issues and dialogue about where the company is headed.

By having these meetings at regular intervals, you ensure that issues are addressed without harmful lag time. Tinker with the length and frequency to suit your business. I tend to err on the side of frequent meetings that provide a rhythm to the flow of information. As your process implementation improves, you may find that you can decrease the frequency. Similarly, you may find that some departments or topic areas, require an additional weekly meeting. You can further increase your efficiency by combining meetings for different departments or topics if the inclusion is appropriate. Your goal is keep at least eighty percent of your communication within the organized process of established meetings, and not allow the black hole of spontaneous emails and impromptu conversations swallow your time.

By having these meetings at regular intervals, you ensure that issues are addressed without harmful lag time. Tinker with the length and frequency to suit your business. I tend to err on the side of frequent meetings that provide a rhythm to the flow of information. As your process implementation improves, you may find that you can decrease the frequency. Similarly, you may find that some departments or topic areas, require an additional weekly meeting. You can further increase your efficiency by combining meetings for different departments or topics if the inclusion is appropriate. Your goal is keep at least eighty percent of your communication within the organized process of established meetings, and not allow the black hole of spontaneous emails and impromptu conversations swallow your time.

Here is a sample description of each of these meetings:

Department meetings are used for marketing, sales, product, technology, product and other major departments. If your business is not mature enough to need all of these department check-ins, combine meetings and handle multiple departments at once. In addition to department meetings, there may be other areas that come up frequently and deserve a regular meeting that fall outside a department or that involve multiple departments. Some examples:

• Pricing Review: Weekly. Duration: 60 minutes. The goal is to discuss and make necessary decision on all issues related to pricing.
• Client Issues: Weekly. Duration: 60 minutes. The goal is to discuss and make necessary decision on all issues related to keeping customers happy.

I know what you are saying, “Who has the time for all of these meetings?” I said the same thing. Try this: for a week, calculate the amount of time and correspondence you have for a particular issue or decision your company must address. Given the haphazard way that most early-stage companies communicate, there is a very good chance you are spending more time in ad hoc discussion than an hour long meeting. You are also less able to make decisions efficiently when issues are dealt with at random, and without the necessary personnel in attendance.

If you are the entrepreneur who fled your corporate office hoping to never have another departmental meeting, there are going to be some process growing pains. But the more efficient your meetings run the better your results—and your incentive to keep strong processes in place. So make sure your meetings don’t turn into the kind of ad hoc communication you’re trying to avoid. Keep your team on the agenda items, set time frames for topics, use key points to guide discussion instead of open ended dialogue. Keep updates brief (department heads should give their update in ten minutes, using the same structure) and then use the lion’s share of these meetings to address and resolve issues, hold discussion, and make decisions.