As educators, we host, facilitate and attend a number of different meetings with other staff members, parents and students. We all get frustrated at meetings that don’t seem to go anywhere or are unnecessary. Inspired by an old post on 43 Folders, I was hoping to offer a few tips that might help make your next staff meeting go smoother, with a little added commentary, and a few anecdotes.

Pre-Meeting Preparation

1. Make sure that the meeting is necessary – does the staff need or want to know the information? Can the information be conveyed with a letter, a phone call to a parent, a chat on the side with a few staff members, or does it require a larger assembly of people.
2. Don’t make people sit through a staff meeting if they only need to be there for 10 minutes. Make sure that the appropriate staff appears at the beginning of meetings, and then can leave.
This just makes sense, but sometimes we forget.
3. Set out a specific purpose for the staff meeting and focus on that purpose.
4. With the purpose in mind, invite agenda items to be added collaboratively (maybe through Google Docs) in order to give more ownership for staff attending the meeting.
5. Make sure the final agenda is sent out a few days before the meeting to ensure that everyone is prepared for the meeting. This helps staff members to bring the appropriate materials to the meetings.

During The Meeting

1. Stick to the agenda and avoid discussions that have little value and lead away from the purpose of the meeting.
We have all been there and maybe we were leading the rant, bu this is the biggest of time waster in staff meetings and the most annoying.
2. Ensure that all staff are aware of the purpose for the meeting and stick to it.
3. Start promptly and keep track of time. Avoid going beyond the time set out in the agenda.
4. Having a person(s) take note of action items, responsibility, and key points raised during the meeting will be helpful.
We use the shared session of MS OneNote for this in order to spread the load and effectiveness of our notes but there are many web based collaborative documents that would be equally effective, provided you have web access. MS OneNote also allows you to do an audio recording of the meeting, doesn’t take a lot of space, and it is saved within the shared document.
5. A meeting needs a leader and a moderator in order to keep focus and limit repetitive comments and small group discussions.
I have heard of one principal that resorted to the use of a “talking stick” in order to keep order in a staff meeting. When you held the talking stick in your hand was the only time you could talk. Another principal limited staff members to two minutes of talking per issue.

Post Meeting
1. In a review at the end of the staff meeting, make sure to include action items that need to be attended to and by whom. This becomes really helpful in the next staff meeting.

Some of these tips may be more relevant to you than others. Are there any strategies that you use at your school?