Meetings Best Practices

In the previous period, I had a lot of meetings, so I came up with a list of best meeting practices that can help you be better at meetings:

Before a meeting:

1. Check if you can resolve the issue you have without organizing a meeting. Create a chat group, or email, try to understand the problem better, and try to solve the issue by yourself. There are several reasons for this.
   1. The more people you need, the harder it is to find a time that is suitable for everybody.
   2. Meetings are expensive for the company.
   3. People are usually busy with their work.
2. If the subject is urgent, ignore the first point.
3. Prepare the meeting agenda.
4. Check all participants' calendars and choose the best time for a meeting.
5. Schedule a meeting and send the meeting agenda.
6. Prepare yourself for the meeting - do your homework/research. You can do this by scheduling another meeting for yourself (book the time).
7. Everybody needs to prepare for the meeting (even if you're not the meeting organizer).

During the meeting:

1. Don't be distracted by something else (chat messages, phone, other tickets...). Follow the meeting and be active. (This is very hard sometimes :D)
2. If you think that the subject is not relevant to you, then you should check with a meeting organizer why you're called to the meeting. (Mistakes can happen)

After the meeting:

1. The meeting organizer needs to send meeting follow-up notes with actions defined in the meeting.
2. The meeting organizer can ask for feedback from some or all the participants.
3. If you think a meeting was not productive, inform the organizer and give him proposals for improvement.

I'm sure that this list is not complete. If you have good meeting practices, please share them with me.

1. If you are needed for some part of the meeting, you can ask the group to leave the meeting after the discussion on your subject is over.
2. The good idea is to write your meeting notes (even if you're not an organizer).
3. At the end of the meeting, you should have a defined list of actions.