The 15 Minute Staff Meeting: Holy $#!* It Works!

As of early this year, I have been given an opportunity to lead a group comprised of search marketing professionals, lifecycle marketing experts, social media aficionados and a seasoned media buying team.  With every department, it is a necessity to include a few standard operations such as setting department/individual goals, projecting revenue, developing new service offerings, billing procedures, and of course, holding a regular staff meeting. 

But, here's the thing. I really, strongly, completely dislike staff meetings.  It's been my experience in ten years in this industry that a scheduled time to come together for the purpose of maintaining productivity and efficiency is, more often than not, a huge time suck.  Thankfully, my cohorts agree.

So we have developed a weekly meeting in which we discuss all of the relevant objectives, tasks and opportunities for our clients in just 15 minutes. 

I say again, "15 Minutes."

Goodbye, 60 minutes with three measly next steps.  Later, dude in the corner of the conference room checking your email on your phone the entire time.  And to the diarrhea of the mouth epidemics for which staff meetings across the country are made famous, I wish you luck in your future endeavors.

While you assume an incredulous facial expression, allow me to explain the rules.

Rule #1 - Everyone arrives on time.  If you don't make it by the time the meeting starts, you may miss something.

Rule #2 - A grid is prepared/updated in advance by the team leader.  This grid includes active projects and shows each task to which individual team members are assigned.  Information is displayed on a large monitor for all to see.  Every team member is aware of his/her responsibilities and deadlines (as well as those of other staffers).  As a team, we run through the grid line-by-line, covering current client projects and retainer engagements.

Rule #3 - Separate meetings are called.  If one particular client or topic requires a deeper, more detailed discussion, another desk-side meeting is set to talk about the particulars.  These smaller gatherings are scheduled so that two or three team members don't waste the time of the other meeting attendees.

Rule #4 - One note taker is assigned.  One different person volunteers each week to take notes for the group.  At the close of the meeting, the note taker emails the group the meeting minutes.  Action items, next steps and follow-up meetings are all laid out in detail.  The email is typically received 10 minutes or less after the close of the meeting

Rule #5 - Standing room only.  The only person permitted to sit is the note taker.

A little hard core?  Probably.  Effective?  Yep, to this point. 

While this is a work in progress and one meeting actually reached the 17 minute mark (disgraceful), our new staff meeting protocol have led to productive, efficient uses of time that involve positive interaction among team members.

Feel free to give the 15 minute staff meeting a shot.

About the Author: Chris Sietsema

As Director of Interactive Marketing, Chris oversees day-to-day digital marketing responsibilities including search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media, email marketing and media buying.

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