How to Run Impactful Team Meetings

By Hannah Pniewski

Meetings are an integral part of any organization’s workflow, providing a platform for collaboration, decision-making, and progress. However, not all meetings are created equal, and without proper structure, communication, and practices, meetings can become unproductive time sinks. In this blog post, we’ll offer a proven structure and key strategies for hosting truly effective meetings. 

imPACT Meetings™: A Guide to Running Effective Meetings

We designed imPACT Meetings™ to ensure teams accomplish the work that needs to get done while making attendees feel supported and encouraged. imPACT stands for internal meetings with Purpose and ACTion.

The five sections of a weekly imPACT Meetings™ are:

• Vision Connection
• Leading Indicator Review
• Team Accountability
• Outcomes and Obstacles: Using Story Solving™ 
• Story Sharing™

Each of these five movements in every meeting will capture the team’s current obstacles, connect them with the guiding vision and decide on the path forward after the meeting ends. 

Let’s explore each of these movements in depth.

Vision Connection (5 minutes)

We start off each meeting by connecting team members to the company values and behaviors. The meeting host will pick one company value per meeting and ask the team to share a value-based insight that comes to mind for them. Then the team will review the strategic pillars of the company and the vision for the team (or the project) that the meeting is dedicated to. We suggest about 5 minutes of the meeting is dedicated to the Vision Connection.

Leading Indicator Review (10 minutes)

The meeting host will then review the Leading Indicators of Success™. The Indicators are data points that the team chose at the beginning of the project or quarterly which tell them if their work is having the results they want. As the team reviews these Indicators, the team will raise any obstacles and opportunities that show in the data. Document these in the Story Solving™ section of the meeting guide to be discussed later in the meeting. This time is not about solving those problems, it is solely about identifying them. This movement should take about 10 minutes.

Team Accountability 

The focus then shifts to holding the team accountable to previously-decided-on tasks and milestones. The meeting host will review last week’s To Do items to see what got completed and what is on-going or delayed. They will also note any obstacles encountered when completing those tasks, adding them to the Story Solving section of the meeting notes. Reviewing these items will hold team members accountable to completing the work that was assigned to them and gives a chance for obstacles to be identified.

Outcomes and Obstacles: Story Solving (60 minutes)

Next up, team members will identify and review key obstacles that are coming up in their current work and they mention what their desired outcome would be. Team members work together with the meeting host to diagnose the problem of the obstacle (highlighting any opportunities that may be resulting as well) and map the path to the desired outcome. This should be the longest movement of the meeting as it takes time to work through these obstacles. 

We suggest dedicating about 60 minutes to this portion of the meeting as there will be lots of back and forth. It is important for the meeting host to facilitate the Story Solving™ of each obstacle or else the meeting could get derailed with several participants stepping in to lead the discussion. For more on the Story Solving™ process, download our imPACT Meetings™ and Story Solving™ guide here. 

Story Sharing

Finally, imPACT Meetings™ conclude with a check-out where attendees review the to-dos that were decided on as a result of the Story Solving™ exercise. The meeting host, in partnership with the attendees and especially any leadership member(s) present, will decide what will be shared with anyone who isn’t present in the meeting. That can be other team members, different departments or customers. Basically, this is the time to agree on who needs to know what by when.

Keep in mind, when hosting imPACT Meetings™, make sure you:

• Document decisions that are made
• Speak a common language that fosters understanding among attendees
• Start the meeting off grounding everyone in the same goal
• Promote inclusivity by welcoming the team to the meeting
• Leverage a project management software to enhance team accountability

You can read more about good meeting principles here.

Implementing the imPACT Meetings™ structure can transform your team meetings into productive sessions that drive results and foster collaboration. And utilizing good meeting principles in every meeting will help enhance that time together. The success of your organization is determined by the efficiency and impact of its meetings, so invest the time and effort to make them count.

To implement Impact Meetings in your organization, download the imPACT Meetings™ agenda here.