So that the board meeting does not become a meaningless conversation, but an effective meeting takes place at which important decisions would be made, the leader must master all the subtleties of organizing and holding this event. So, here are 8 tips for running an effective board meeting.
Effective board meeting: 8 practical tips
The board meeting is a form of multiplying the intellectual capabilities of executive bodies and developing the right ways to manage personnel. So why do the board members call meetings one of the main reasons for the eternal shortage of time, missed deadlines, and fatigue that piles up at the end of the working day? Usually, in such cases, it is the inability to conduct meetings. So they stretch out for long hours, and rare, valuable thoughts drown in the swamp of long phrasings.
So, let’s go through the 8 key rules to running a successful meeting:
- Think carefully about the purpose of the meeting. It is necessary to clearly and unambiguously define the topic and the desired outcome of the meeting.
- Develop your agenda carefully. Choose the most appropriate sequence of consideration of questions. At the same time, proceed not from business criteria but psychological ones. It is best to start with the subtopic that is easiest to solve. The “success” achieved in this way will encourage the meeting participants.
- Send an invitation as early as possible to the people attending the meeting. From such an invitation, it should be clear what the theme and purpose of the meeting are.
- Choose a digital platform. There are many alternative solutions in the IT market to organize remote virtual collaboration. In this case, board management software would be the best one.
- Stick to the main topic. Most of the time is spent on the discussion itself. And you will have to not only follow the timetable but also act as a facilitator, masterfully monitoring so that the discussion does not switch to side issues and remains constructive.
- Inform the meeting participants about the facts discussed during the discussion. Such familiarization can be arranged before the meeting by providing appropriate documentation to prospective participants.
- Monitor compliance with regulations. You must persistently reminded to exceed the time limit. There should be a time limit for one statement because the board meeting is not the place for lengthy monologues.
- Record all decisions. If you conducted the meeting well and accurately formulated all the outstanding issues, this protocol would serve as the basis for the agenda of the new meeting.
Board software – the best way to organize an efficient board meeting
Board members require a secure collaborative environment to have confidential discussions. The board portal ensures perfect tools to connect online with the help of the latest technology to provide privacy, security, and transparency. So, board management software offers many helpful features and benefits for organizing successful online meetings of the board of directors:
- Automated meeting invitations make meeting preparation much faster and easier;
- The functions of automatic generation of protocol files and reports save time by eliminating routine operations for documenting the results of the meeting;
- Automatic generation of tasks according to the decisions made at the meeting can significantly reduce the time interval from the moment of the meeting to the receipt of the task by the executor.
- Protocol files and reports are generated according to customizable templates, which gives an additional opportunity to customize the presentation of information;
- Full-fledged work with assignments for meetings;
- It is integrated into the document management system; thus, the user’s desktop can also view meetings.