3 Effective Meeting Tips From Apple and Google

Meetings are an inevitable facet of modern business. These meeting tips from Fortune 500 companies like Apple and Google will ensure that your regular pow-wows are as effective as possible.

1. No agenda, no meeting. Meetings without an agenda are little more than social gatherings. There’s no purpose to guide discussion or ensure the get-together is the productive work session it should be. Ensure every meeting you run or attend has a clear agenda to keep ideas on track.
2. Action items for all. Meeting attendees should all leave with action items or clear next steps. What’s the use of a meeting that doesn’t give employees marching orders to advance the business in some way?
3. Clear end time. Not only will an explicit end time force meeting attendees to stay on topic, it will also spark creativity. Open-ended meetings promote wasted time, tangential discussion and poor productivity.

Sean Blanda identified additional organization-specific meeting quirks for 99U. Apple, for example, lists a Directly Responsible Individual to each agenda item, promoting accountability. And Google has no more than 10 attendees at any given meeting.

What tips would you add to ensure meetings are effective?

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