Optimising your weekly meeting
Improving management by optimising your weekly meeting
The weekly meeting is a managerial ritual that enhances operational efficiency and promotes team coordination towards achieving set goals.
How can this moment become an effective tool for improving management? Answers in this article.
The weekly meeting: an essential point
Weekly meetings typically start with a roundtable where each participant shares their activities from the past week: tasks completed, people met, progress made in projects, etc. The purpose of these meetings is to report on each person's progress during the past week and summarise collectively made decisions. Each participant also has dedicated time to discuss challenges, facilitating group problem-solving. The weekly meeting is also an ideal time to highlight achievements from the week.
Better team communication
The weekly meeting improves team communication by establishing a regular and structured exchange. By giving each team member the opportunity to share their progress, weekly activities, and challenges faced, it enhances transparency and cohesion. By allowing each participant to speak, this meeting helps better understand team members' responsibilities and coordinate efforts. By also encouraging recognition of individual achievements, the weekly meeting boosts collective motivation and strengthens team unity. Thus, it serves as an essential tool for effective communication and harmonious collaboration.
Defining tasks and objectives
The weekly meeting facilitates effective synchronisation of goals and tasks by offering a regular space to align priorities and actions with the team's overall objectives. By regularly assessing task progress, it facilitates identifying necessary adjustments to achieve set goals. Applying the SMART method (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound) during these meetings helps define clear and precise objectives. This facilitates their tracking and ensures better efficiency in achieving both individual and collective goals.
Preparing for your weekly meeting
Preparing for the weekly meeting involves several crucial aspects, guiding the manager in planning this regular exchange.
Choosing the day, time, and location
Carefully selecting the time and place to ensure participants' availability and maximise the meeting's effectiveness, ideally early in the week for optimal concentration.
Choosing participants
Carefully selecting participants based on the topics to be discussed, while clearly informing them in advance about the meeting, encourages preparation and active participation.
Preparing the agenda
Developing a detailed agenda provides a clear and effective structure for the meeting, ensuring a reasonable duration to maintain participants' attention, typically between 30 to 40 minutes.
Tips to optimise your weekly meetings
Optimising the weekly meeting involves meticulous planning of the agenda and careful selection of participants, ensuring effective exchanges and optimal use of meeting time.
Simple tips for effective speaking
The weekly meeting is a powerful tool to showcase managerial talent. To maximise effectiveness when speaking during weekly meetings, specialists recommend applying the following points:
- Set a clear intention to ensure listeners retain the key message: motivate team members as a manager, persuade, or explain.
- Carefully choose elements to convey for maximum impact, opting for concise and impactful wording.
- Pay particular attention to the first few seconds of speaking to create a favourable atmosphere for listening and engagement.
- Avoid abstract words and prefer vivid, evocative expressions to captivate the audience and leave a lasting impression.
- Stay attentive to the audience's signals to adjust the speech accordingly and maintain their interest.
- Regularly repeat key points to reinforce their impact and ensure team members remember them.
- Use silence as a powerful tool to allow the main message to resonate and team members to reflect on it.
- Adopt a direct and concise approach.
Monitoring progress after each weekly meeting
Monitoring progress after each weekly meeting helps better evaluate team efforts. By assessing results and adjusting actions accordingly, post-meeting follow-up helps the manager verify that set goals are being efficiently and effectively achieved. Additionally, it promotes transparency, accountability, and collaboration within the team, thereby enhancing trust and motivation to continue progressing towards common goals.
