52 Tips for Killer Meetings

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Wireless Presentation. Communication. Collaboration

Meetings happen for many reasons, rarely though are they streamlined, efficient, productive, to-the-point, disruption-free AND worth the time… we do what we can to make them better, but it’s a constant challenge for us all.

We’ve trawled through a host of resources, the best of the best of the best and collated these meeting tips for you to follow and enhance your meetings – these come from CEOs, consultants, project leaders and dozens of influential and powerful people: all of whom face the same problems as you and I, “how can I meet better?”

We’ve compiled 52 tips, that’s 1 tip per week for a whole year, all designed to make your meetings more productive and effective than ever before.

Squeak-free meeting room chairs – People will fidget, don’t let it distract everyone else

Secretly set the clock 10 minutes ahead of time – When people are presenting (and don’t have their phone or computer in front of them) they are more likely to be concise and waffle less if they think they’re running out of time/going to be late for whatever they have after the meeting

Embed power outlets in the meeting room table – Why mess about running cables from wall sockets the full length of the room

Simple Display – there is NO good reason to have a meeting in a room where the display or the projector require a PhD in operating it, meeting attendees should be able to walk in the room and intuitively know how to use it, even if they’ve never seen it before

Don’t scrimp on the snacks – if you are providing food for the meeting, serving the cheapest option says, “I don’t care about you.”

Writable Walls – being able to write, demonstrate and illustrate points like this is great for innovation… + it’s fun

3 52 Tips for Killer Meetings

Timed move-arounds – if a meeting is scheduled to be quite long, set a timer and give everyone the chance to walk about for a bit, being physically uncomfortable is a real blocker for productivity

Collaborative Technology – if you’re able to use software or hardware to facilitate everyone in the meeting actually working together on content, why would you not!

Present Wirelessly – Remove the need to fight cable problems and switch presenter dongles or gadgets, allow users to stream directly from their devices to the display, saves time and increases productivity (give this its own page)

Stick to the Time Limit – before the meeting, perhaps when inviting people to attend, make it clear how long the meeting will last. Do NOT go over it. You’ll learn to get things done quicker and with less time wasted

Schedule Regular Meetings – if you know you’ll need to meet every week on a certain issue, don’t leave it up to ‘whenever, wherever, whatever’, get everyone to block off the time in their schedule and set a recurring meeting schedule for the same time and room every week – if a meeting is routine to people it’s less likely to be disruptive to their flow

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Pick Your Time Wisely – If possible, schedule meetings at times that don’t interrupt peoples regular working flow or patterns… first thing in the morning, just before lunch or after perhaps… ideally, people don’t stop what they’re doing, come to the meeting, then go straight back in – this is an interruption and should be avoided

Properly Prepare – don’t turn up to a meeting that you’ve scheduled poorly equipped. Know your talking points, have any distributables, know that any refreshments are available, that the technology is already set up

Pre-distribute Relevant Materials – why waste time in the meeting handing around documents that are essential to the meeting… send it beforehand or stream it live and cut that whole section out of the meeting

Reach Conclusions Often – if a meeting covers different topics, say – 4 different topics in an hour long meeting, with 4 decisions that need made, have self-discipline that every 15 minutes, a decision has to be made and the topic is left behind

Banish Tangents – Tangents are the enemy. Avoid them.

Allow Creativity – it’s important to be able to see when a tangent has opportunity for real exploration. Maybe don’t disrupt the meeting by discussing it but make sure it’s followed up on if not.


Assign Follow-Up Roles – if something is decided upon in a meeting as, “needing doing,” make sure it’s clear who has ownership of the task, even if a task involves multiple people, assign one person as ‘owning’ the job.

Document Key Content – any content that comes up in a meeting that is useful to team members, store in a communal location such as Dropbox, Drive, Box – people shouldn’t waste time hunting for what they know exists.

Appropriate Follow Ups – Make sure that tasks that require actions are followed up on, don’t just assume that ‘someone is on it’. Also, if people who own tasks need advice, direction or information, much easier just to ‘touch base’ than have to hold a whole new meeting on the topic.

Crystal Clear Agenda – every single person coming to a meeting should know (well) in advance of the start what the full agenda is, being properly prepared is key for productivity

Limited Attendance – not everyone needs to be in a meeting, make sure that those who are in a meeting actually have to be there

Everyone gets a turn – when meetings have the right people in them, the contribution of the collective allows the outcomes to be that much smarter

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Tool Up – don’t be afraid to use technology to facilitate the meeting or aspects of it. The right tool for the right job – but know how to use it before the start of the meeting

Start on time – just as important as ending on time

Do you even need to meet? – is there any way the topics and discussion of the meeting could be covered by an email? Much less disruptive to people’s day…

Eliminate negativity – If you want to run a meeting with people in it who care and want to contribute, don’t shout down ideas or insult something you believe is a stupid thing to say

Acknowledge the meeting’s character – is the meeting for brainstorming ideas? Is it a project review? Is it budget planning? Is it for collaboration or mere information sharing? Each different type of meeting

Ensure Understanding – whether in a quick moment after the main bulk of the meeting and before everyone leaves (promptly I might add) if there’s anything people didn’t understand, gauge it here! Otherwise it can be done afterwards via email but that’s another disruption to the day…


Identify the Note Taker – make sure (preferably before the meeting starts) who is in charge of taking notes through the meeting

Team Announcements – you have people in a room, use a few seconds at the start for housekeeping if you need to (just don’t overrun at the end because of it!)

Identify Blockers – if someone is running into a brick wall on an issue being discussed, make sure everyone knows its ok to speak up, better that than someone gets completely left behind.

Recap – try to leave adequate time at the end to quickly (actually, lightning speed) fire through what was covered, what the outcomes are and who owns any actions required

Quick Minutes – try not to leave a long period of time between culmination of a meeting and minutes & notes being distributed – people may well need them for their follow up actions

Open Ended Ideation – if the character of your meeting is for idea creation, innovation and exploration of concepts… maybe putting a scheduled end time isn’t the best idea, what if ideas don’t start flowing until 90seconds before the end…? But make sure everyone is aware of this so they don’t have schedule clashes if this is what might happen

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Midweek Meetings – This should come as no surprise, people aren’t necessarily at their most productive on a Friday… the same is true of Mondays, sometimes people aren’t back into full work mode yet. Consider Tuesday as people haven’t yet put in half a working week beforehand

The Meeting ‘Parking Lot’ – make sure that any issues touched on that should be explored further are kept track of for future reference or discussion

Collect feedback – anonymously might be a good option too, if you want honesty… perhaps meetings aren’t as good as you think or a particular type of meeting gets better results than others for your team members… don’t be afraid to ask for it and don’t be afraid of the results

Live Note Taking – Where possible, have the note taker displayed on a screen or projector, if they take a note that people feel doesn’t expand on a point enough or miss a topic they deem unimportant but to someone else is crucial, seeing it can avoid unnecessary problems down the line

Short & Standing – If a meeting is intended to be short, do away with sitting. Nothing gets people more on track and wanting to finish than wanting to have a good sit down at their desk


Silent the World – Make sure (in advance) that everybody knows to turn off their notifications/mute their devices in the meeting. Perhaps set a punishment for a ringing phone… has to bring the coffees to the next meeting?

Have the full agenda visible – Either on a display/projector or in the pre-distributed notes, people should be able to look and see that in 4 minutes we’re supposed to be moving on to topic 4

Prompt or Else – Have a casual fine for the last person to turn up to a meeting… for example, last one in the meeting room door has to put $1 in the donut jar

Justify your existence – Sounds harsh, but hang on a minute… if you find that your meetings have people attending that don’t need to be there and it isn’t being sorted… in the first couple of minutes, go around the room and have everyone state their name and why it’s important that they’re there… you’ll soon see results when people have to say, “I’m here because Bob said I should be…”

Reduce the Time – Think a meeting will take about 90minutes? Why not schedule it for 80minutes every once in a while… maybe it’ll work for you, maybe you really need those 90minutes… but how will you know if you don’t try?

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Keep Score – when you gather feedback from meeting attendees, simply ask was this a win or a fail. If you have loads more wins than fails after a month or so, you’re doing good – and you should be able to see what to improve. If you have more fails, it’s time to shake up your meeting approach

Democracy or Tyranny – make sure it’s clear in a meeting where decisions need to be made if the group leader is deciding or if consensus is required…

Don’t be afraid to cancel – there’s no point having a meeting for the meeting’s sake, if you have a regularly scheduled meeting and you realise it isn’t needed this week, cancel it – give people prior notice that they don’t need to disrupt their day to come to a pointless meeting, believe me, they’ll thank you for it

Cut people off – it sounds mean but if someone is waffling, you’re going to have to stop them. Maybe agree a ‘safe word’ with your team members for meetings, if someone says, “Has anyone got a ruler?” it’s the speakers cue to stop waffling. It’s slightly less rude than, “Karen if you could just stop talking now that would be great.”

Interact with the Information – if there’s a display, a projector, a whiteboard or something similar – use it. Don’t hide behind a laptop for the duration if you can help it. Put on own page


Interrupt the Interrupter – if someone is being rude and interrupting people when they speak, be brave enough to interrupt them and tell them “Sorry Gary but Bob was still speaking, continue Bob…”

Switch up the Seats – Don’t be afraid to play musical chairs, people are creatures of habit, sometimes you need them out of their comfort zone, try not to let people sit next to their desk-mates or who they normally sit beside in meetings

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Montage lets you wirelessly connect up to 12 attendees on a main meeting room display fast and efficiently – it’s as simple as connecting to your Wi-Fi.

Any attendee can bring their content to the fore with a simple click or swipe. ‘Passing presenter control’ becomes a thing of the past, everyone’s contribution

is available as and when it’s required.

With file sharing and annotation capabilities, the meeting actually ends when the meeting ends – eliminating follow up reporting, note taking and updated

content distribution.

To find our more and to discuss how you can use Montage to improve your meetings go to www.displaynote.com/montage

Wireless Presentation. Communication. Collaboration

52 Tips for Killer Meetings

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