The Top 4 Ideas That Will Make Your Meetings More Effective

“Studies of college students have shown that they can focus for only 10 to 18 minutes before their minds begin to drift; that’s when their brains need to do something with new information – make a connection or use it to solve a problem.”

Besides a bit more maturity and experience, your team is not much different than college students.  So what do we do with the information about the length of focus time?

1. Keep your meetings short and focused.  Do stand-up meetings.  Pick unusual locations.  Stay under 45 minutes.
2. Pace new information and seek closure.  It’s better to talk about fewer ideas and to come to a conclusion rather than an extended agenda.
3. Your team members want to figure out a way to apply new information and learning to a solution.  Help them.  My guess is that you want that too so show them the way!
4. Help them bridge from a concept to a current issue with a personal story from your career.