Tips for Running Successful Meetings

College presents many opportunities for students to hone their organizational management skills. In the Sustainability Capstone class at the University of Georgia, for instance, small groups of students are each paired with a community partner to co-develop a semester-long applied project to improve the sustainability of the institution or community.

Yet students often come into this role with varying degrees of experience when it comes to running meetings. Below are some tips for maintaining clear communication with project partners or successfully leading a student organization.

Send a draft agenda and reminder, ideally a day or two before the meeting. Ask if there are any items anyone would like to add to the agenda, so those can be captured in case someone can't make it.

Set approximate times for how long each discussion point should take. Some of us tend to get carried away with small talk (me), so having a rough timeline helps keep everyone on track. This is especially important if there are a lot of decisions to get through.

The meeting facilitator and the note-taker should ideally be different people. Meeting facilitation can require a lot of attention so dividing these roles can be helpful.

There is an art to note taking. Try to take notes that are succinct but capture the important details (i.e., not verbatim stream of consciousness nor sparse bullets). These will serve as a reminder for later.

Identify next steps at the end of the meeting, as well as when they should be completed, and who is the point person in charge of seeing each item through. If there are a variety of external partners who are in communication with the organization, it is useful to have one person be the main point of contact to streamline communication.

Send out the meeting notes/minutes shortly following the meeting, especially if there are people who could not be present or if it is an organization with a lot of members. Highlight the next steps (+ dates and point person) in the body of the email, with the more detailed notes attached or posted to an accessible common space like a communal website or GoogleDrive.

When setting up a calendar of events, it is useful to set dates and locations as early in the semester/year as possible to minimize scheduling conflicts and ensure that spaces are available.

Give people plenty of time when requesting feedback. If you are asking someone to provide input on a plan or document, build in ample cushion time for review and revisions.

Democratize decision making to the greatest extent possible. Soliciting broad input helps generate buy-in, identify potential conflicts with dates/locations, and expand the range of suggestions, leading to higher participation and better outcomes for everyone.

Send regular reminders, especially if you are requesting something like a presentation abstract or volunteers for an event. It might be useful to have an initial due date followed by an "extended deadline" for those who tend to drag their feet.

Create institutional memory. Have a shared GoogleDrive, collective organizational email account, binder of important documents, etc. Whatever the method, the important thing is to ensure that materials are all collected in one central location and that they are readily accessible from year to year.

Don't neglect recruitment. How will the organization continue to run once the leadership changes over?

Set a time and process to pass the torch to ensure that the next round of leadership is adequately trained on the minutia of their roles.