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No matter how good you plan, there will always be things that go different.
Campaign costs are higher then expected, staff getting sick, demand plunges etc.
And then you need to adjust, in Value Through Passion's framework we call this ReSet.
If you work with a team, resetting will be done with the help of meetings.
I prefer to have meetings on a weekly basis for a team but if your organisation feels more comfortable with biweekly or monthly that is good too.
The problem with meeting is that most people hate them, and they hate them because they don't have value for them.
To make meetings productive and valuable for everyone it there are few things you can do.
1) Make the meeting your PAL
This means the meeting has a clear purpose, agenda and a set timing.
It's important a meeting starts exactly on time, you don't want to waste peoples time because one or two are too late. You also want it to stop at an agreed moment. A meeting should never last longer then 2 hours but for something like digital marketing i think never even longer then an hour.
It can help to divide the meeting in 2 parts first part is result orientated, where are we, what goes good, what doesn't, what needs to be changed.
The second part is about organisation, to solve problems the team has to get maximum results. For example i have to much work on my plate and that is why i can't put the time i should allocate on topic a. If you do this you prevent having long discussion in part one about excuses why a certain result is not met. If someone says i didn't have time, you note that and discus that later.
2) Everyone can contribute to the Agenda
Clear Agenda: Everyone can submit agenda points, you have to appoint a facilitator who puts them on the agenda, but points only are valid if they can get the team contribute to the goal in a better way. In Holocracy you call these agenda points tensions, a name a personally really like.
3) Participants represent a role vs a person
This also comes from Holocracy, each participant should understand and live their role in the meeting vs their own person. You represent a content writer or a ppc campaign manager etc. From that perspective you bring arguments on the table. A facilitator has to watch this and step in if needed. I have seen bullying, terror and the most scarry things during meetings. Its really important to have a save haven that can trigger the best ideas on the table.
4) Role Updates on results, next steps and strategic relevance
Each role or in bigger meeting team has a brief 3-5 minutes to present on results, what has been achieved in the last period, the most important next step for the upcoming time period, and the relevance of their results and their next to the objectives. This makes sure others quickly understand where this role stands, what priority is and if strategic relevance and priority is in line with the team or organisations objectives,
5) Make sure everyone participates during the meetings
You want everyone's wisdom on the table, not only from people who shout the hardest. Therefor a facilitator makes sure everyone gets a say: first by presenting your own results of the last period, by giving your own reflection of the last period and by being able to raise tensions during the meeting, which will be an agenda point this meeting or next if there is no time, so you are Guaranteed your voice is heard.
6) Use the Integrated Decision Model
Again this is a concept from Holocracy, the integrated decision model helps meetings to take decisions fast and with everyone's opinion heard.
The model has a "problem / solving" owner who presents it's problem and if they have the solutions, then everyone can ask questions to get clearer about the problem. Once the problem and solutions are clear for everyone, everyone can contribute to the idea with their suggestions. The idea of this round is to make the solution better, not to object to it.
If everyone did their suggestions, the problem owner can adjust his or hers solution or not based on the feedback received.
Then we get an objection round, her everyone can say if he or she objects to the idea, if so they have to state why.
After the objection round, the problem / solver owner needs to adjust to make sure the objection is taken care of.
Then again everyone can object to the new solution, all the way until a solution is found everyone can live with.
This sounds like a long process, but actually goes pretty fast, most of the time much faster then an unstructured discussion and they buy is also better, because everyone is heard and the decision is truly made together.
7) Timing of Meetings
Most people have high energy levels in the morning. To "drag" highly productive people into a meeting might not be the most ideal moment of the day. A better timing could be after lunch. Though if you need a lot of energy in for example a creative brainstorm session maybe, the morning is a better idea.
If there is a lot of cross team activities in a organisations, the number of meetings some members have can go pretty high. Depending on the person and role, make sure people have meeting free days, to ensure their are days you can be productive and if in a flow you are not disturbed by scheduled meeting.
Learn more about how meetings are set up in Holocracy https://www.holacracy.org/tactical-meetings -> note the above is my interpretation of the ideas and not a one on one copy.
Love to hear how you manage effective meetings with results.
