How to hold the perfect meeting

Attending meetings that take up an hour or two of your working day without providing much value can be tiring. We host thousands of meetings in our spaces every year and want to make sure you’re getting the most from your time with us. Take a look at our top tips to ensure your next meeting is packed with productivity.

1. Pick the right venue
Considering the purpose of the meeting will help you select the perfect setting. Does it need to be inspiring to help generate new ideas or smart for a strategic decision making session?

2. Timing
When are you going to get the best out of those attending? Bright and early can bring fresh minds, but consider the morning rush hour journey. You want everyone to arrive on time and with a positive mindset, ready to jump straight in.
Avoid midday and late afternoon where minds can wander onto what’s for lunch and evening plans.

3. Agenda
Sharing the discussion points with attendees ahead of the meeting will allow everyone to prepare for a successful session. Don’t forget to include some time at the start to get that all important tea or coffee, or you will already be running behind.

4. Time keeping
Give someone the task of keeping an eye on the clock. Giving an outline of time to cover each agenda point will make sure everything you need to work through gets covered.

5. Keep on topic
It’s inevitable that discussions will go off on a tangent. Remember the key things you need to get out of the meeting, if anything arises that requires further information or detail, park it for this session, make a note of it and follow it up at a later time.

6. Take notes
When discussion is flowing, it’s easy to forget to jot key things down. Make sure one person is making notes for the whole team including actions, owners and time frames. This responsibility can be given to a different person for each meeting. Don’t forget if you use any flip charts or white boards, take a quick photo to capture this information too.

7. Follow up
It is key that the notes from the meeting are shared promptly after the meeting. By doing this you give everyone the best opportunity to complete their actions on time. As with note taking, sharing this task ensures 1 person doesn’t get all the legwork from the meeting.

Make the most of these top tips in our inspiring meeting rooms. Choose from 19 locations across Manchester, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Leeds, Liverpool and Birmingham.