Meetings are one of the MOST important parts of running a business.
But most businesses don’t optimize their meetings!
Business leaders and managers run the meetings like they always do.
(And most employees are probably ready to fall asleep during the meetings…)
Whether big or small, remote or in-person, we’ve tried a LOT of different strategies for more fun and effective meetings.
Today, I’m sharing strategies we use at our business Sumo.com for more successful meetings.
You’ll learn:
- Minute-by-minute how we optimize our weekly all-hands meeting
- Strategies we use to make our meetings more effective (and fun)
- Why we moved meetings from Monday to Tuesday
Here’s a breakdown of our meeting approach:
1 — The ONLY Goal
We kick off the weekly sync with our #1 goal for the month. We repeat this EVERY meeting.
It’s there to remind everyone of the company’s top priority and make sure we’re all aligned.
2 — Good News
Every week, I pick a team to share about good things that happened outside of work.
As our team has grown, it’s important we stay connected to each other and other team members know what’s going in everyone’s life.
3 — Goal Progress
Next up, we go through our goal progress. Are we on track of the goal? If not, why not? A lot of times, we’ll show off the goal progress visually… aka a demo of how the product is looking.
4 — Story
Also known as Parable (if you want to sound smart).
It’s a story that I share with the team to illustrate our company’s value or a lesson learned.
It’s not always related to the company either. A story I recently shared was about SumoRide. When we first launched, no one bought. The lesson is to keep iterating until you become successful.
5 — Props
A shoutout section for anyone to put someone else’s name for something that they did great the previous week.
I LOVE this section. I think it’s really important to highlight the epic work people are are doing to everyone on the team.
6 — Discussion Items
General happenings around the company this week. A recent week included…
- Nick Bare is here.
- Sumo Values
- Celebration May 10!
7 — Teams
This is where each team gets to show off what they’ve done recently. Projects completed, cool things that happened last week, and other things a team wants to share.
That’s our meeting structure. 😃
I’m sure this format will evolve 3 to 6 months later. This is how we stay organized NOW at Sumo.
How do you run meetings at your company? Leave a comment below.
One response to “How to Have Better Meetings”
Love this structure and openness to changing in a few months to make it better.
How long do these meetings typically take with this many items and departments reporting?