Tips to make team meeting as more Effective and Interactive

“Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people” –
Steve Jobs

Team meetings are essential sessions for any business. A team meeting should be a professional or formal invitation to the employees look forward to each week. A place where they can share their concerns, share ideas, ask questions, get vital information, and feel that they are part of the overall process. It gives a way to improve productivity and achieve the common goal of the Company.

Importance of Effective Team meeting
Meetings are part of all the organization. Effective team meetings are not difficult but they need the required skills and structure to accomplish. Effective team meetings will help the team to deliver quality work much faster and achieve the goal on a better path together. It will also help the team to showcase their leadership skills.
Team meetings are a key component of any business. It’s important for the employees to know and understand what is going on with the organization and what are expectations they need to meet in order to achieve the goal in a successful manner. It is one of the best ways to create a culture of constant improvement.

Why do Effective Team Meetings play a vital role in business perspective?
Meetings are vitally important. Effective team meetings are more fruitful, inclusive, and collaborative. It helps the employees feel included, trusted and that they are important team members. Here are some reasons how they play a vital role

It constructs Stronger Relationship:
Every meeting you run with your team should be an opportunity for discussion, participation, and conversation. When there is a free-flowing exchange of ideas and you can see and hear your teammate’s thoughts personally, you obtain to establish a deeper bond with your team. Effective team meetings help you create a strong bond. A strong team dynamic is vital to work success and fruitful. Nothing beats a physical team meeting to create and maintain a good working relationship.

It helps to make better and faster decisions:
An effective team meeting is essential to provide resolution and brainstorming. It is also one of the easiest ways to build connections. If you are a team manager it is easier to make better decisions when you have enough information on key matters that affect your team. Collaborative decision-making uses teams to discuss an issue and a possible solution. This type of decision-making works best when you have multiple groups of employees who can present multiple perspectives of a decision to take a balanced approach to problems. While its
common to collaborate with co-workers, you must also seek ideas and feedback from other sources such as industry experts or customers.

It facilitates Creative thinking:
Effective team meetings allow employees to expose critical thinking, creativity, and ingenuity. You can come up with a good idea but think of the possibility of creating even better ideas when you and your teamwork together. Conducting brainstorming sessions with your team to innovate ideas. This can lead team members to build off one another strategies until they come to a creative solution, method, or strategy.

It enhances employee engagement:
When team members feel that their inputs are needed and considered, it helps them value their job more. It also motivates them to contribute to the improvement of the team and the organization as a whole. This sense of belonging sets their place in the organization and helps them praise their work. When you have high employee engagement, expect more productive employees and overall results for your business

It gives opportunities for personal growth:
Truly effective meetings create opportunities for each person to enhance necessary skills. The facilitator is straining their leadership skills by practicing effective communication techniques and motivating the group to be accountable for their commitments. It also enables the participants to challenge themselves and trying something new. When tasks are being discussed and assigned, participants can take on the work that interests them most. Even if they have limited knowledge or experience they can join a group to learn and enhance their
skill. Tips for running an effective and interactive team meeting Effective meetings should be properly planned, structured, organized, and controlled. Here are some tips you can follow to have an effective and interactive team meeting.

Preparing a clear agenda for the meeting:
Clearly saying the purpose of the meeting and providing an agenda in advance make sure that everybody is on the same boat. Why is it being held and how do they need to come prepared. Clearly state what you want your team members to contribute to the conversation during the meeting. label any decisions that need to be made, problems that must be solved, or information that must be understood. At end of the meeting, the objectives should have been completed.

Duration of the meeting (Start and End time):
All the meetings need some structure. Pick a proper time frame to conduct the team meeting. it all depends on the meeting’s objective and the topic. When it comes to team meetings, here are some recommended meeting spans:
• Twice weekly team meeting: Consider starting with a 45-minute meeting.
• Ice breaking session: The suggested time frame for this type of meeting is between 15
to 45 minutes.

Start with an ice breaker session:
Conducting a fun ice breaker session will help to activate the right brain. Set the meeting for creativity and participation and make your team members comfortable with interacting with each other.

For example: Ask your team members, Which is your favorite animal? And how does it resemble
your character? Tell your friend beside you. Please write down your best strengths and least
strengths on the piece of paper.

These types of questions will make the team members participate and interact with each other to
start the session in a smooth and fun manner.

Taking minutes of the meeting:
According to Dr. Art Kohn, Professor at Portland State University School of Business, on average, we forget 50 percent of Information after one hour, 70 percent in 24 hours, and 90 percent of information after one week.
The best way to keep everything on track is the documentation (notes taken) that you have discussed in the meeting. documenting the discussions and why they were made. this will help the recorder or note-taker to reevaluate them, review the past decisions and conversations.

Be remote – Friendly:
When team meetings are conducted, first you need to make sure that your remote workers are accessible for the right tools. Some tools to consider include
• Meeting management tools
• Time tracking software
• Videoconferencing tools

In the FYI survey, they asked, which of the following video chat tools you use in remote
meetings?
• 69% said Zoom
• 41% said Google hangouts

• 22% said skype for business and 10% said WebEx

Ask questions that encourage discussion:
Communication and understanding between team members are key ingredients to an effective meeting. To get your talking about their feelings, challenges and wants asks questions like these
• What was our biggest accomplishment this month?
• What was our biggest challenge this month?
• What resources would help us all succeed?
• What is something we can improve in the company?
This type of question will encourage the team members to share their ideas and
thoughts.

Feedback and follow up action:
Effective team meetings are a great medium for feedback and continuous improvement. Feedback is given instantly and this open communication will allow your team members to grow professionally. Team meetings are a great way to learn more about working with your team and how can you continuously improve. You can also give a feedback form to your team members after the meeting to write down what’s going right and what can be improved.

Why team meeting is much needed in this pandemic situation?
While it’s true that most business interactions take place online. In this pandemic situation, a Team meeting is still important to gather all the information related work process, to gather all the updates, to strengthen professional relationships, to improve the quality of work technically.
Communication in remote teams, whether casual chats or work-related discussions can’t easily happen as spontaneously as before sitting next to each other. Heightened communication is necessary for your team members.

Objectives for the meeting will be:
• Begin to establish a sense of community
• Explore the challenges people face in working from home
• Clarify expectations, encourage the team members to let you know whether they
need any support-related work tasks during this situation they are personally facing.
• Inject fun and humor, share funny videos, some riddles, and brain teasers. Find a way
to start a day with positive energy and a sense of community