Have you ever attended a meeting and wondered why you are there?

Sometimes people send out meeting invites across the entire organization on the assumption that many heads are best. However, more attendees often make a meeting less productive. An article from Flowtrace indicated that 35% of survey respondents believed that limited the number of people in the room was important for meeting success.

When participants start to believe the meeting is a waste of time, their engagement slips. This can lead to mildly disruptive behavior, such as looking at phones or side-conversations. At worst, it can rise to active disruption in the form of pointless argumentation or snide comments.

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A cardinal rule of meetings is to invite as few people as possible, but enough to make the meeting effective. How should a meeting planner determine whom to invite? Here are a few parameters:

• Does the meeting topic directly affect a potential attendee’s core job functions?
• Are they directly responsible, or part of the team responsible, for the item discussed?
• Will they carry out actions resulting from decisions made at the meeting?
• Do they have specific expertise relating to the topic of the meeting?
• Could a team leader attend in place of the whole team and report back?

For example, an early high level meeting to discuss the allocation of the materials selection budget could be attended by the division leaders, including collections, finance, and administration. A future meeting where the discussion reaches branch level allocations could be expanded to include the branch division head and specific managers who oversee special collections.

In addition, keep in mind that not all participants need to stay for the entire meeting. When someone is done with their portion of the meeting, allow them to exit if feasible. To that end, it is helpful to organize the meeting agenda to enable participants with limited roles to have their items discussed early so they can leave to resume their regular duties.

Remember, employees work time is valuable. Don’t waste their contributions by obligating them to attend unnecessary meetings. They will appreciate it.