Meetings too long or too frequent?

Most businesses rely on holding meetings as part of their operations but often people complain that they go on for too long, are inefficient and are too frequent.

A recent article in Wired reported that “Senior managers spend 23 hours of their working week in them” and it has been reviewing some of the new technology that could help businesses to make meetings shorter and more efficient.

Among the suggestions are an interactive board, a wireless, wall-mounted whiteboard and screen.

This can be particularly useful where some members of the meeting are participating remotely.

A particular issue especially in long meetings is how comfortable the seating is. Sitting for long periods can cause health problems and one office furniture company has designed a Smart Chair contains sensors in its seat pad that can connect to users’ smartphones. It will alert the user via the phone if they have been sitting for too long.

A particular bane of meeting life is the need to produce minutes documenting what has been discussed and agreed, or not. A gadget that can transcribe scribbled notes as well as recording audio could make short work of that!

Many people now use video conferencing but sometimes the camera quality leaves a lot to be desired. Enter the camera that uses AI to scan the room and automatically provide the best angles as well as including analytics to monitor the room’s usage.

Aside from all this smart technology there are other things businesses can do to cut down on the number and length of meetings they need.

These include establishing a clear agenda, holding your meeting standing up, limiting the time per topic, ordering priorities and scheduling the meeting for half the time originally intended.

It is also important to consider whether all the people originally included actually need to be there or could some of them just receive a brief email summary or quick call afterwards.