How Long Should your Meeting Last

How Long Should your Meeting Last

by | Oct 14, 2020 | Meeting management software

When scheduling a meeting, most organisations do not consider how long the meeting should last. Since a meeting requires the time and participation of multiple people, it is important to decide the duration of a meeting so that it does not end up wasting the participants’ time.

Shorter meetings are believed to be more effective than longer ones where attendees lose interest after some time. Longer meetings tend to turn into boring discussions that do not lead to any results. On the contrary, shorter meetings are more engaging and save an organisation’s time and money. Organisations are switching from manual meeting management processes to meeting agenda management software for effective management of meetings.

Time is crucial
Setting the right amount of time is one of the most important factors to determine the success of a meeting. According to one of the well-understood laws of time management, tasks tend to extend beyond the allotted time. If you limit the time available for meetings and all of the many tasks people need to accomplish, they tend to become more efficient; sounds surprising, but it is true.

A helpful idea is to simply make your meetings five minutes shorter. If you would normally schedule 30 minutes for a particular type of meeting, make it 25 minutes instead. Similarly, if you usually set aside 60 minutes, reduce it to 55 minutes. This will also enable team members who have to attend back-to-back meetings, to get to their next meeting on time (and maybe even have time for a toilet break in between!).

A 25-minute meeting
A well-planned 25-minute meeting can help you achieve a lot. A quick meeting like this – with a well-designed agenda distributed well in advance – can help address various project-related questions quickly. You can use meeting agenda management software to automatically create and circulate the meeting agenda among your team members.

A 55-minute meeting
A 55-minute meeting (down from an hour) is appropriate for topics that require a greater depth of discussion. Such meetings can include a periodic review of what the organisation has been doing, what has been achieved so far, and what needs to be worked on over the next period. Participants require sufficient time to discuss important points and ensure that the meeting is constructive. In addition to periodic review meetings, project meetings for large or complex projects also usually fit in the 55-minute meeting category.

A meeting of more than an hour
Although it is not recommended to schedule many meetings that last more than an hour, you can occasionally hold such meetings if required. Examples could include strategic planning meetings or meetings dealing with complex compliance or legal matters.

Tips to keep your meetings short
An effective way to keep your meetings short is to prepare for the meeting, record meeting minutes, and follow-up. Complete meeting action follow up software can help you achieve all of these efficiently.

meetingTRAC for Efficient Meeting Management
meetingTRAC is smart and easy meeting management software that automates scheduling and agenda templates, allowing minutes and actions to be recorded and distributed electronically in real-time.

meetingTRAC lightens the load on businesses, clubs, and community group volunteers by saving time, reducing stress, and empowering clubs and organisations to get on with what really matters. In addition, meetingTRAC helps save money in preparing, running, and reporting on meetings.

meetingTRAC meeting agenda managementsoftwareis easy to integrate into any organisation, can run on any computer or mobile device, and does not require any software download.

Sign up for a 7-day free trial to explore how meetingTRAC can help you drive efficient meetings.

How can Board Meeting Management Software benefit your Organisation

How can Board Meeting Management Software benefit your Organisation

by | Oct 1, 2020 | Meeting management software

In a competitive community or business environment, strategy building and planning are crucial for the growth of an organisation. In large community organisations with many subcommittees, or large businesses with multiple levels of hierarchy, board meetings help devise new business plans and strategies. To ensure organisations grow, each subcommittee or each layer of the hierarchy must be well-informed regarding strategic decisions.

What are the challenges faced by boards?
Boards need to make decisions that are bestsuited for their organisation. In addition, they are required to ensure that their strategic decisions offer long-term value, providing a balance between risk and growth.

The following are the challenges usually faced by board members:
• Managing internal and external communication between board members
• Assigning and monitoring planned actions based on previous decisions
• Referencing important decisions made in the past

How can board meeting management software address these challenges?
Board meeting management software empowers board members to effectively conduct and manage their meetings. It provides a complete meeting management solution – from scheduling a meeting, to automatically creating and distributing meeting agendas and minutes, to distributing tasks among volunteers or staff, and more. In addition, board meeting management software promotes better coordination between board members and allows them to be on the same page.

Here are a few ways board meeting management software can address the challenges faced by board members and provide them with benefits:
• Easy scheduling of board meetings
• Access to meeting details, such as agendas, minutes and action items
• Access to relevant documents to drive future decisions
• Easy sharing of information across each level of the hierarchy
• Security of sensitive documents and information
• Accessibility through smartphones and tablets, enabling easy access and easy sharing of meeting files

Board meeting management software simplifies the scheduling of meetings, helps in the efficient management of records, improves member collaboration, and effectively tracks the progress of projects, meaning that boards can work out changes best-suited to their organisation.

meetingTRAC for Efficient Meeting Management
meetingTRAC is one of the best meeting management software solutions that automates scheduling and agenda templates, allowing minutes and actions to be recorded and distributed electronically in real-time.

meetingTRAC can help boards with efficient meeting management by enabling:
• Automatic creation and distribution of meeting agendas ahead of meetings
• Seamless recording of meeting minutes and electronically sharing them with team members
• Real-time exchange of information
• Cloud-based access to meeting files for better decision making
• Easy follow-up on action items to ensure that the goals set during meeting are achieved
• Easy tracking of a meeting’s progress

meetingTRAC lightens the load on board members by saving time, reducing stress, and empowering teams to get on with what really matters. In addition, meetingTRAC helps save money in preparing, running, and reporting on meetings.

meetingTRAC board meeting management software is easy to integrate into any organisation, can run on any computer or mobile device, and does not require any software download.

Sign up for a 7-day free trial to explore how meetingTRAC can help you drive efficient meetings.

5 Tips to Running Efficient Business Meetings

5 Tips to Running Efficient Business Meetings

by | Sep 25, 2020 | Meeting management software

Business meetings are crucial for an organisation. They help monitor the processes and activities that an organisation performs to accomplish its goals and objectives. In addition, meetings help teams brainstorm, discuss problems and find solutions, make decisions, and create an action plan.
While productive meetings benefit an organisation, unproductive meetings are just a waste of time and money, leading to no results. Thus, it is important that you make your meetings effective. The right meeting action follow up software can help you with efficient meeting management while saving your time and effort significantly.

Here are five tips to running efficient business meetings.

1. Have a clear purpose
The first thing you need to ensure before starting a meeting is defining a clear purpose for the meeting. This will help you have a clear perspective and plan for the next steps accordingly.

Identify whether you want to conduct a meeting to share information with your team or discuss new ideas or a problem at hand.

2. Create a meeting agenda
A well-designed meeting agenda helps drive the meeting in the right direction. Once you are clear with the purpose of your meeting, create an agenda outlining the topics that you want to cover in the meeting, along with the time allotted to each topic for discussion.

Share the agenda with your team members ahead of the meeting so that they can have a clear idea about the meeting and come prepared for it. Meeting action follow up software can help you seamlessly create and distribute meeting agendas with your team in real time.


3. Ensure equal participation
The meeting involves teamwork. Let all of the attendees participate and share their ideas. Value every participant’s input and their perspectives. When everyone participates, you are more likely to get better ideas – whether it is to solve a problem or reach a specific decision.

4. Take meeting minutes
It is important to take meeting minutes and capture all of the takeaways from the meeting – it can include discussion points, key decisions, action items, or open questions. It can be challenging to take meeting minutes manually, but meeting minutes software can automate and streamline the process.

Meeting minutes provide clarity on the meeting outcomes and enable easy follow-up.

5. Follow-up and evaluate
Review the agreed actions and assign tasks to your team members and specify the deadlines. One of the most common mistakes that organisations make after a meeting is not setting up a structured follow-up process. This is why even the best ideas shared in a meeting are sometimes not achieved.
Review regularly to determine if the meeting is accomplishing its purpose. If it does not, have open discussions to take the next actions.

meetingTRAC for Efficient Meeting Management
meetingTRAC is smart and easy meeting management software that automates scheduling and agenda templates, allowing minutes and actions to be recorded and distributed electronically in real-time.

meetingTRAC lightens the load on businesses, clubs, and community group volunteers by saving time, reducing stress, and empowering clubs and organisations to get on with what really matters. In addition, meetingTRAC helps save money in preparing, running, and reporting on meetings.

meetingTRAC meeting tracking softwareis easy to integrate into any organisation, can run on any computer or mobile device, and does not require any software download.

Sign up for a 7-day free trial to explore how meetingTRAC can help you drive efficient meetings.

How can Meeting Tracking Software help at Different Stages of a Meeting

How can Meeting Tracking Software help at Different Stages of a Meeting

by | Sep 22, 2020 | Meeting management software

According to a CBS News report, professionals lose 31 hours per month, on average, to unproductive meetings. This is more than four workdays every month! If you take into account the salaries of the people sitting through unproductive meetings, the cost to a business can be astronomical.

Unproductive meetings are a result of a lack of planning and preparation of meetings. To enhance the effectiveness of meetings, organisations are switching to meeting tracking software. By enabling proper preparation for meetings and streamlining the creation and distribution of meeting agendas and minutes, meeting tracking software is improving the way businesses run meetings.

The three stages of meeting tracking software
Meeting management and tracking involves coordinating the various components of conducting an effective meeting. Meetings can be broken down into three stages – before the meeting, during the meeting, and after the meeting.

Meeting tracking software helps drive efficient meetings by assisting with the following points during each of these stages:

Stage 1: Before the meeting
As the first stage, meeting tracking software builds the foundationfor the meeting. It is important to provide attendees with clarity on the purpose of the meeting and their roles so they can come prepared for the meeting. An ideal way to inform the participants is through a meeting agenda.

The agenda includes all of the necessary details about the meeting, including the purpose of the meeting, the participants, roles of participants, action items to be discussed, decisions to be made, time and place of the meeting, and more. Distributing the agenda among participants ahead of the meeting can help them to properly prepare for the meeting.

It can be intimidating and time-consuming to create and distribute a meeting agenda, but meeting tracking software like meetingTRAC, can automate and streamline the entire process.

Stage 2: During the meeting
At this stage, the meeting tracking software helps the meeting run smoothly. The agenda ensures that the desired action items are discussed by the right attendees. This prevents the meeting from losing its track and helps fulfill its objective.

In addition, this stage involves decision-making and taking meeting minutes that can be shared with the attendees after the meeting so that everyone is aware of theirgoals, actionsand responsibilities.

Complete meeting tracker software like meetingTRAC enables easy recording and distribution of meeting minutes electronically, in real time.

Stage 3: After the meeting
After the meeting, the meeting tracking software helps gauge the progress of the goals that were to be achieved. The minutes recorded during the meeting should have all the information needed to guide this process. In addition, the software facilitates task follow-up and helps ensure that team members are working towards accomplishing their tasks.

meetingTRAC for Efficient Meeting Management
meetingTRAC is smart and easy meeting management software that automates scheduling and agenda templates, allowing minutes and actions to be recorded and distributed electronically in real-time.

meetingTRAC lightens the load on businesses, clubs, and community group volunteers by saving time, reducing stress, and empowering clubs and organisations to get on with what really matters. In addition, meetingTRAC helps save money in preparing, running, and reporting on meetings.

meetingTRAC meeting tracking software is easy to integrate into any organisation, can run on any computer or mobile device, and does not require any software download.

Sign up for a 7-day free trial to explore how meetingTRAC can help you drive efficient meetings.

5 Reasons to have a Meeting Agenda

5 Reasons to have a Meeting Agenda

by | Sep 14, 2020 | Meeting management software

An agenda includes a list of items to be addressed in a meeting. The difference between meetings with agendas and those without can be vast, including everything from misunderstood information or a lack of meeting outcomes and achievements, through to complete chaos.

Businesses conduct meetings to share information, devise plans, document progress and make decisions. A well-structured agenda ensures that meetings achieve desired results and proceed in the right direction.

Given that the manual creation and distribution of a meeting agenda requires considerable time and effort, organisations are switching to agenda management software to automate and expedite the process of creating and distributing meeting agendas.

Here are five reasons why meeting agendas are important.
1. Better Preparation
An agenda helps ensure that the topics to be discussed in a meeting are known to the participants well in advance. This provides participants with sufficient time to prepare for the meeting. In addition, participants know how they are required to contribute during the meeting – whether they need to prepare a presentation, a report, or anything else. Meeting attendees know what to expect from a meeting.

2. Meeting Objective
A meeting agenda enables participants to focus on the topics at hand, preventing the meeting from losing track. This is because the agenda includes a list of meeting goals and essential points that keep the meeting focused on its purpose. Furthermore, agenda management software enables users to prioritise goals on the agenda and mention participants responsible for each goal or topic.

3. Equal Participation
A detailed preview of the meeting agenda helps set the pace of the meeting. Since the role of each participant is defined on the agenda, every attendee knows what they are required to contribute. This ensures equal participation and prevents organisations from inviting employees who are not required to attend a meeting.

4. Time Management
An agenda provides a roadmap for conducting an efficient meeting. It helps ensure effective utilisation of participants’ time, especially when agenda management software provides an option to include time against each item mentioned in the agenda. Sticking to the time helps attendees emphasise important topics and issues.

5. Participants know what to Expect after the Meeting
An efficient meeting has action items to be achieved after the meeting. Accomplishing these action items is essential for the growth of an organisation. Meeting agenda and minutes software helps users record action items and distribute meeting minutes among participants so that everyone stays on the same page and is aware of their responsibilities. Additionally, using meeting management software can help make well-informed decisions and gauge progress.

meetingTRAC for Efficient Meeting Management
meetingTRAC is smart and easy meeting management software that automates scheduling and agenda templates, allowing minutes and actions to be recorded and distributed electronically in real-time.

meetingTRAC lightens the load on businesses, clubs, and community group volunteers by saving time, reducing stress, and empowering clubs and organisations to get on with what really matters. In addition, meetingTRAC helps save money in preparing, running, and reporting on meetings.

meetingTRAC meeting agenda and minutes software is easy to integrate into any organisation, can run on any computer or mobile device, and does not require any software download.

Sign up for a 7-day free trial to explore how meetingTRAC can help you drive efficient meetings.

Four ways meeting tracking software can save you time

Four ways meeting tracking software can save you time

by | Sep 10, 2020 | Meeting management software

If you are charged with meeting management, you have to fulfill various responsibilities – such as scheduling meetings, preparing and distributing agendas, taking meeting minutes, and following up with attendees. All of these tasks can be time-consuming, especially when done manually. However, meeting tracking software can expedite and streamline these processes.

Meeting tracking software automates meeting management – whether it is scheduling a meeting, creating and distributing agendas and minutes, or creating a repository of meeting files.

Here are four ways meeting tracking software can save your time:

1. No need to search filing cabinets
It is estimated that employees spend 20 percent of their time searching for paper documents and 3 percent of a company’s documents are misfiled. Searching for these documents not only wastes time, but losing the documents means you may lose valuable information.
Meeting tracking software eliminates the need to maintain paper documents and enables you to create your files online. Some software, like meetingTRAC, provides cloud-based access to meeting files, which means that you can never lose track of any of your documents, regardless of when they were created.

2. No need to create copies of documents
It cannot be denied that you need to create multiple copies of documents – whether it is a meeting agenda or meeting minutes – and distribute them among your team members before and after the meeting so everyone stays on the same page. Creating multiple copies can be a waste of time, including if those copies are electronic copies that everyone files separately on their own computers.
Meeting tracker software provides online templates to create meeting agendas and take meeting minutes, all of which can be quickly shared with team members electronically in realtime. You need not waste time creating multiple copies of documents.

3. Real-time access to meeting files
In today’s digital era, business operations require mobile access to information. With a manual, paper-based meeting management process, you cannot ensure accessibility of information, around the clock. The risk of having information only available in hard copy is that you cannot carry all of your paper documents with you everywhere.
Meeting tracking software, however, addresses this problem by enabling real-time access to information. Since the software enables the creation of digital documents and provides cloud-based access, you can get any information you need, anytime and anywhere.

4. Automate meeting agendas, minutes, and follow-ups
An inevitable waste of time happens when you have to manually create and distribute meeting agendas and minutes among your staff.
A software solution automates the creation and distribution of agendas and minutes. All of the information is stored at a single place and is accessible to everyone on the network, which streamlines and accelerates follow-ups.

meetingTRAC for Efficient Meeting Management

meetingTRAC is smart and easy meeting management software that automates scheduling and agenda templates, allowing minutes and actions to be recorded and distributed electronically in real time.

meetingTRAC lightens the load on businesses, clubs, and community group volunteers by saving time, reducing stress, and empowering clubs and organisations to get on with what really matters. In addition, meetingTRAC helps save money in preparing, running, and reporting on meetings.

meetingTRAC meeting tracker software is easy to integrate into any organisation, can run on any computer or mobile device, and does not require any software download.

Sign up for a 7-day free trial to explore how meetingTRAC can help you drive efficient meetings.