Running effective meetings

After experimenting with meetings in recent years at Sproutt, here are some of our conclusions for running effective meetings:

1. Utilize a Meetings App:
   Have your meeting agendas and notes on a cloud app for time savings and increased transparency. Tag colleagues with action items or notes before and after meetings. At Sproutt, we use Fellow.
   

2. Template Recurrent Meetings:
   Create templates for recurring meetings (Weekly, R&D Monthly, Product-R&D, 1:1, Retrospective) to save time on agenda preparation. Fellow templates work well for us.
   

3. Schedule 15min Meetings:
   Experiment with shorter, 15-minute meetings. No introductions and side-talks, get things done..

4. Schedule Meetings Around Recurrent Events:
   Avoid spreading meetings throughout the day (1x morning... 1x afternoon); it disrupts a maker's schedule. Instead, schedule them next to existing and recurring events, like lunch or Daily to minimizing interruptions and context switch.

5. Weekly Meetings Planning:
   Start each week by dedicating 20 minutes to plan and outline agendas for all upcoming meetings. Automation (what you communicate in each meeting) isn't just for development; it can also streamline your meetings..
   

6. Keep Attendees Minimal:
   For technical meetings, limit participants to four or fewer; for non-technical meetings, a maximum of six is ideal.