In management trainings, participants complain most about the number of meetings in the organization. A typical sentence is: „I’m in meetings until five o’clock, and then I stay in the office to do the work I was supposed to do that day.“<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Meetings are the biggest unnecessary expense organizations spend a great deal of money on. On top of that, they demotivate people, because a good portion of these meetings are pointless, unnecessary, unprepared, and without a clear agenda, purpose, or goal. There are no precisely agreed activities, owners, or deadlines at the meeting; everything stays „up in the air“, so another meeting is needed afterward.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
As Fredmund Malik wrote in his book „Managing, Performing, Living“, a large number of meetings in an organization causes an even larger number of meetings, until eventually managers spend most of their time attending meetings. The share of meetings in a manager’s working day should not exceed 30%. Above that, the problem lies either in the manager or in the system the organization runs on. In any case, we are then talking about the inefficiency of that person or of the entire organization.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Meetings can generally be divided into the following types:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
It’s very easy to get lost in a forest of meetings. Meetings that end by scheduling new meetings, which then produce more meetings, are a common occurrence in organizations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
You can remove most of your meetings from the schedule. Don’t hold a meeting without pressing need. If you currently already have a fair number of meetings in your calendar, cancel a good portion of them and organize the work differently.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Don’t support or hold meetings that don’t have a prepared agenda and goal, sent far enough in advance so everyone can prepare. A good question to ask when preparing a meeting is: What do I want the concrete result of the meeting to be? What specifically will we gain from the meeting? You must be crystal clear here if you want to call a meeting.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Let every meeting end with:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Every meeting should have minutes that contain these four elements listed above.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n As a manager, set one day a week for your team’s weekly meeting. That meeting must not last more than 1.5 hours and must always be held at the same time, the same day of the week, and with the same structure (not the same content). Regularly holding weekly meetings can replace most ad hoc or one-on-one meetings.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Consistency and discipline in holding weekly meetings are key to team effectiveness. A common practice is to report at weekly meetings on what each person did. Such an approach is not useful because it focuses on activities rather than results.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Weekly meetings should report on achieved results, not on activities undertaken. Activities are a means, not an end.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The purpose of work in an organization is to achieve results. This includes increased productivity, new customers, financial results, improved service quality, feedback from customers or suppliers, and feedback on people’s engagement.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n A weekly meeting should be structured to enable clarity, brevity, and a focus on results.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Start with 5–10 minutes of informal conversation. One way is for everyone to briefly say the best thing that happened to them in the past week, privately or professionally. This helps relax an atmosphere that may be tense for various reasons. It’s important that everyone is brief and concise so the total time doesn’t exceed 10 minutes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Tasks are reviewed as „done – not done“. In this part of the meeting there is no discussion of tasks that weren’t completed. This is very important because meetings often turn into a discussion about one task or project that is then debated endlessly. Such an approach disrupts the meeting structure and reduces its effectiveness, and it also negatively affects team dynamics. If there’s a need for discussion, decide whether it will be resolved one-on-one or defined as a topic for the „Problems and opportunities“ part of the meeting.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n This is an important part of the meeting where important topics are nominated. These can be topics (problems or opportunities) related to projects, relationships, products, results, people, equipment, customers, suppliers, processes, goals, new markets, and so on. Topics are collected throughout the week or at the meeting itself. Once the topics are collected, prioritize them together with the rest of the team by arranging them from most important to less important. After that, the discussion begins, topic by topic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Topics that can’t be resolved at that meeting are carried over to the next week. Here it’s important that everyone present is included in the dialogue and that the meeting facilitator is the one who facilitates the dialogue, not the one who dominates it. Domination will result in passivizing the other members, so after a while the weekly meetings will look like a monologue rather than a dialogue.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n A short round in which everyone says how satisfied they are with the meeting and whether there’s anything else they’d like to add.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n You’ll need three roles in the weekly meeting. They are:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Meeting facilitator:<\/strong> leads the meeting, facilitates the discussion, asks questions, includes people, and so on. This role is most often held by the team leader.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Meeting process owner:<\/strong> makes sure everyone keeps to the planned time, content, and structure. If someone talks too long or goes into detail during the task review instead of moving it to „Problems and opportunities“, the process owner intervenes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Minute-taker:<\/strong> this person records everything that needs to be recorded (activities, owners, deadlines) and sends it to everyone for review. If you use a tool like Asana, the minute-taker enters the tasks and deadlines directly for the person who took on the commitment.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n BOOM is an organizational operating model that combines structure and discipline with autonomy and trust, ensuring organizations succeed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In BOOM weekly meetings, in addition to the above, a review of the „traffic light“ of operational activities, strategic projects, and key financial indicators is also carried out. The traffic light in meetings is a visual tool, i.e. a KPI (key performance indicator), that uses colors (red, yellow, and green) to show the current status of a project, goal, or task in a few seconds. It allows the team to see at a glance where urgent intervention is needed and what is going according to plan. It also gives employees from different departments a clear overview of the overall health of the business.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n These elements strongly influence people’s focus toward results aligned with the company’s strategy — what is truly important and crucial for the organization’s success. Also, each person defines their focus (1–3 key activities\/goals) for the coming week, month, and quarter, aligned with the company’s strategy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n If you want to assess your company’s operational and organizational excellence and its level of alignment with the BOOM model, take a short self-assessment at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nRegular weekly meetings<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Structure of a weekly meeting<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Introduction (10 minutes)<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Tasks (10 minutes)<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Problems and opportunities (60 minutes)<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Closing the meeting (10 minutes)<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Roles in the weekly meeting<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
BOOM elements of the weekly meeting<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n