Leadership Skills

Evaluating Meetings

Your team should review meetings regularly. Evaluation will give you feedback in ways to make improvements. Here are some questions you might ask before and after a meeting:

• What is/was the purpose of the meeting? While this seems obvious, not everyone may be aware of the meeting's purpose. That means that not everyone will walk away with the same meaning. It is important to establish the purpose at the beginning of the meeting and verify it at the end.
• What, if anything, is preventing us from achieving our goals? If key players are absent from the meeting, why continue? Perhaps the meetings are too long or too short. Meetings are intended to facilitate and assist in meeting team goals; do not allow your meetings to become barriers.
• What are some suggestions for overcoming the obstacles? This is the perfect time to solicit input for overcoming barriers. Input from the participants will give you a different perspective and possibly fresh ideas.

If your teammates are uncomfortable discussing these questions as a group, you could provide short questionnaires that they could complete and submit anonymously. Once all surveys are received, if there are common concerns, you must address them.