A conversation is not a meeting

A good conversation and a real meeting are not the same thing. Both have their place in your work, but only one is built to move a project forward.

What is a meeting, anyway?

A meeting is when two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics in order to accomplish a goal. But some meetings end with more confusion than when they started. We have all been in bad meetings that stall our momentum.

A few simple habits make meetings productive and worthwhile every time:

• Have an agenda (or at least a stated purpose) that everyone knows: what are we here to talk about, decide, and accomplish together?
• Assign someone to take notes and share them afterward. Give people a way to add details: an email thread is OK, a shared Google document is better.
• End with decisions and actionable tasks, and assign each task so everyone knows who is doing what.
• Prioritize action over discussion, and turn a discussion into action as soon as possible.
• Instead of asking questions, propose actionable tasks.
• Instead of disagreeing with a proposal, offer a different solution.
• Identify the next deadline before the meeting ends: a launch date, test, draft, presentation, or just the next meeting. (Or task one person with scheduling the next meeting within 24 hours.)
• Keep meetings short: 30 or 60 minutes.
• Hold them with the fewest people possible.
• When you finish the agenda, end the meeting, even if it is early.

The bottom line: a meeting always moves a project forward with actionable tasks, assignments, deadlines, and a record of what everyone agreed to do.

Conversations still matter

Good conversations are also part of your work: brainstorming, debriefing, decompressing, even goofing around. Just don't mistake a good conversation for a meeting.