How To Run Effective Virtual and In-Person Meetings

According to a Slack State of Work report, 35% of employees cite spending too much time in meetings as a top productivity challenge. In fact, employees say that 43% of their meetings could be eliminated with no real adverse consequences.

That said, some meetings are necessary. So how do you make them more effective? Start by prioritizing efficiency.

We’ll explore how to run effective meetings, create agendas that keep teams on track, and use communication tools to connect and share information outside of meetings to make the most of everyone’s time.

What does an effective meeting look like?

Effective meetings have a clear goal, focused agenda, engaged participants, and tangible outcomes. Every meeting should start and end on time, allow for open discussion and collaboration, and clarify actionable next steps for all attendees. Additionally, it’s important that clear notes are taken during the meeting and shared afterward in a place accessible to all team members. If anyone leaves a meeting unsure of what to do next or where to find the information they need, it was not effective.

Misconceptions about meetings

The biggest misconception about meetings is that they’re unnecessary. Many times, the only way to move forward on something is by meeting with others to discuss problems, solutions, and possible outcomes.

Most essential meetings are held to:

• Collect or share information
• Gain consensus or insight
• Collaborate with others
• Resolve challenges

However, it is not always necessary to meet, depending on the issue at hand. For example, a company announcement or project status update — or anything that doesn’t require immediate action — can typically be sent via email, DM, group chat, or Slack channel.

How to run effective meetings: a step-by-step guide

Effective meetings can be a powerful tool for driving productivity. And face-to-face collaboration is a great way for people to build relationships and trust with one another — even through a screen. But ask yourself some key questions before you send an invite to make sure the meeting is essential:

• What is the purpose of this meeting/what do I hope to achieve?
• Who needs to attend this meeting?
• What decisions must be made, and by whom?
• What action items must be completed to move forward?
• How much time will we need to cover everything?
• Can this be communicated effectively in a written message?

Step 1: Establish a clear objective

There’s a time and place for every type of meeting — from new-hire onboarding and companywide all-hands to project kickoffs and collaborative brainstorms — as each helps facilitate a different outcome.

To avoid redundant meetings, always ask yourself if you need others’ input or if the information can be clearly communicated via email or another channel. For example, status update meetings may seem necessary, but there’s no need to meet to sync on granular updates when individuals can use project management tools to stay on the same page.

Step 2: Design a precise agenda

Successful meetings require a host and an agenda. Agendas provide structure and key details to keep the meeting on track. They also help attendees prepare questions, updates, and other materials beforehand to make the most of everyone’s time. Here’s how to build a standard meeting agenda:

• Include meeting details. Make sure the meeting date, time, location, and attendees (with titles) are included on the agenda. For virtual meetings, always include the meeting link and passcode.
• State goals. The goal of the meeting should be clear so everyone can come prepared. For example, if it’s a weekly team meeting, the goal may be to give status updates and address issues so work can move forward.
• Assign roles. If you want certain team members to speak on agenda items, make sure they know beforehand so they can prepare. If you don’t use an automated note-taking tool, be sure to assign a note taker.
• Share the agenda. Once your agenda is ready, share it with attendees at least 24 hours before the meeting to give everyone a chance to review. If your team uses Slack, you can post it to your team channel to avoid excess email.
• Add timestamps. When creating your agenda, include time estimates for each item. This will create expectations for attendees and presenters and keep the meeting from running over.
• Prioritize agenda items. Address topics in order of priority, discussing the most important or time-consuming items first. This makes it more likely that you’ll cover those items, even if some attendees have hard stops or other conflicts.
• Establish action items. Every meeting should cover next steps and action items. The meeting host should share the meeting minutes or summary — with next steps and responsible parties — to a team channel after the meeting so everyone knows what to do and where to go for details.

Step 3: Facilitate discussion

Whether or not you have a distributed team, people can quickly become disengaged if the meeting doesn’t require them to participate. Set expectations and adjust strategies to make meetings engaging for all attendees. Some ways to encourage active participation in meetings include:

• Break the ice. Help attendees relax and get to know each other better with a brief icebreaker. This can be as simple as a quick check-in or a fun question, like “What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” or “What’s the best concert you ever went to?”
• Encourage hand-raising. Let everyone know they can raise their hand at any point during the meeting to ask a follow-up question, seek clarification, offer a comment, or present concerns. This can help you create an open environment where people at all levels feel comfortable sharing.
• Assign multiple speakers. Break the meeting into sections, with someone new leading each one. Switching up presenters can help refresh attention spans and encourage attendees to take ownership over a topic or project.
• Organize breakout groups. If a topic calls for it, and you have time, divide attendees into small groups for focused discussions. This gives more people an opportunity to share and space to dive deep into details with fewer people.
• Use visuals. While decks are informative, reading verbatim off a series of slides is a quick way to lose people’s attention. Incorporate images, videos, or diagrams into a presentation and speak casually, leaving room for discussion or questions.
• Choose time wisely. Consider when you’re likely to get the most focus from your team. Maybe that’s in the morning, when people have just had their coffee, or mid-week, when there may be urgent issues to discuss. Try to avoid late afternoons and Fridays, when people are wrapping up tasks or thinking about the weekend.

Step 4: Manage time to maintain focus

Inevitably, people will be late to meetings. But you should get in the habit of starting meetings on time, even if everyone hasn’t arrived yet. If people do come late, don’t stop everything to catch them up. This may encourage people to show up promptly the next time around. Be sure to record meetings and make them accessible on a shared drive or Slack channel. Tools like AI summarization can also help late or absent attendees get up to speed after a meeting.

Unsure how long your meeting should be? Here’s a guide for common meeting types and approximate lengths to help you stay focused and waste less time:

Step 5: Leave with actionable outcomes

Avoid the post-meeting slump by summarizing key points and assigning action items to specific team members before the meeting ends. Then share meeting summaries and action items with your team in a shared space to promote transparency and accountability. Some effective meeting strategies to help ensure that people leave meetings with clarity and purpose include:

• Follow up promptly. Document meeting notes with an AI note-taker, and make them accessible to all attendees as soon as possible after the meeting ends.
• Clarify next steps. Meeting notes should include specific task assignments with relevant details and clear deadlines.
• Tie up loose ends. If any side discussions were tabled, make sure to follow up on them afterward. Tag relevant people in your team Slack channel so participants can choose if, how, and when to keep them rolling.

 

Transitioning between virtual and in-person formats

While virtual meetings are more common than ever before, in-person and hybrid meetings aren’t going away. Hybrid meetings include both in-person and remote attendees and require technology like video screens, laptops, and Wi-Fi for remote attendees to dial in.

We’ll look at some best practices for virtual and hybrid meetings below, focusing on how to use technology to bridge communication gaps.

Using technology for virtual meetings

From web conferencing and phone calls to impromptu huddles, there are many ways to connect remotely. Regardless of your preferred technology, it’s important to accommodate team members logging on from various locations and time zones.

If your team is distributed and coordinating meetings is a challenge, connecting asynchronously may be a better choice for less urgent issues. In this case, you can pre-record an audio or video clip and distribute it in the appropriate Slack channel for team members to review on their own time.

Measuring the success of your meetings

Running effective virtual and in-person meetings can be a challenge at first, which is why it’s a good idea to measure their success so you can continue to improve them. Below, we’ll explore how to evaluate meeting efficacy beyond just time spent.

Key metrics for evaluation

Some important metrics to gauge meeting effectiveness include:

• Attendance and participation. If people regularly miss meetings, this may be a good indication they don’t find them useful. Organizers can monitor attendee engagement based on their participation. If the same few people speak every time, or if people regularly stay quiet, consider the reason. Maybe it’s time to adjust the meeting format.
• Duration. If your meetings regularly run short or long, consider reevaluating their structure to make good use of everyone’s time, focus, and energy.
• Action item completion rate. How quickly are action items addressed after meetings? How often are they missed or significantly delayed? If you’re seeing slow or missed progress, this could indicate that team members lack clarity or aren’t being held accountable.

Feedback loops for continual improvement

Another way to understand how successful your meetings are is to check in with your team regularly via open group discussions or one-on-ones. Or if you prefer to gather more candid feedback, consider sending out anonymous surveys or in-channel polls.

Collecting feedback helps meeting organizers evaluate whether the meetings are valuable for attendees. If meetings are falling short, it’s key to understand where and how to improve them. You should aim to gather feedback about them at least once a quarter to ensure that people’s voices are heard and that organizers have regular opportunities to revise meeting structures or formats.

Effective meetings keep teams aligned and productive

While it’s true that many meetings can be pruned down, communicated asynchronously, or skipped altogether, some are critical for creating alignment and making decisions. With a well-organized agenda, engaged participants, clear next steps, and the right tools, meetings can be a powerful way to create transparency, accountability, and productivity at your business.

See how Slack’s work OS and AI tools can help teams facilitate more organized meetings.