Redefining SMART

To meet is to communicate. Nothing less, nothing more. Therefore, it is one of the most important processes in business. Readable and clear meeting minutes represent what has been discussed and agreed during meetings and is key in having everybody on the same page.

But how do we have an effective and efficient meeting? And how should we write our meeting minutes in order to let it become the important communication artefact that it should be? How should we stimulate team members reading meeting minutes and - more important - timely follow up on their actions? 

SMART

The answers to these questions and in fact, the success of every meeting, can be brought back to the following five SMART pillars:

• Simplicity
• Mindset
• Action
• Right to the point
• Tooling

It is the combination of these five drivers that leads to successful business meetings and follow ups. Omitting one or more drivers will result in less efficient meetings and might impact productivity. 

This SMART principle can be applied to corporates and small and medium enterprises. Where most corporates use the SMART principle to (re)optimize their current meeting (minutes) process, small companies are using the SMART principle to structure their processes. 

Simplicity

Keeping things simple works! Once processes become complex, the first thing to ask yourself is how to simplify it. It might not always be possible to make things less complex, but at least create awareness that there is always a simple alternative for everything. If things are complicated, it will not work in the end or it will be cost intensive.  

It is no different with meetings and following up on actions. Start with asking yourself what the purpose of the meeting is (what do you want to achieve and do you really need the meeting), who have to attend (relevancy of people/expertise), what is the agenda (structure of the meeting), how much time do you have for the meeting (time management) to name a couple of preparation tasks.

Good preparation is key and it gives you the chance to cut-off complexity: maintain focus, skip the non-relevant topics, keep brainstorming out of the meeting, invite only people who can add value, manage the meeting time….keep it simple!

Mindset

One of the main objectives of business meetings is to keep everybody on track and focused, leading to the desired outcomes and creating business value. 

People must have the right mindset and attitude in order to achieve this objective. They should value the relevance of meetings because it is essential for sharing information, structuring processes and in the end, adding value to the business. Don't meet to meet!

With the right mindset and attitude, team members continuously are adding value to the business! 

Action

In the end, it is about defining and following up on manageable actions. The follow ups lead to the finalization of tasks which can lead to a next task, to decision-taking or to the closure of a project (phase). Following up on actions keeps the process going and will eventually result in meeting the project goal.

It is important that team members do follow up on their actions in a timely manner. It is the responsibility of the leaders to define manageable actions. Follow up doesn’t always have to be the closure of a task. It can also be an intermediate status update of the action. The status update could trigger another team member to (re)act and so on.

Following up on actions in a timely manner moves things forward and allows your business to grow.   

Right to the point

We tend to forget that we don’t have to write everything that is mentioned during a meeting. It is enough to write down the actions, decisions and the relevant notes. It not only saves time but it also is more pleasant to read and (re)act upon it. 

We also have the habit to attach many documents and we assume that people read the attached documents. In some industries, it is common (maybe mandatory) to have certain documents attached to the minutes, but it is more efficient to add the relevant information into the minute. 

Write down only relevant and action-based statements. Professionals do not need more to create business value.

Tooling

Living in the digital age, where most of the time-consuming tasks are done by intelligent software solutions, the meeting minutes process must be automated as much as possible. Noting on paper, retyping it in a text processing application, sending the draft via email for verification, maintaining various versions, storing it on different locations, sending the final version via email… this unfortunately still is business as usual. It is time-consuming and error prone. 

Meeting minutes should be managed with an application, where meeting notes, actions and decisions are stored in a database. The application must be available anytime, anywhere and on any device. Preparation, taking notes during the meeting and distribution after the meeting must be done from within the application. 

Use the right software solution for managing meeting minutes and be more productive.

Summary

Having effective meetings with right follow ups and creating business value depends on various things. Demonstrating an entrepreneurial mindset, acting timely on your actions, keeping things simple, using the right software tools and avoiding overhead are the key success factors in increasing your productivity.