HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter (HBR Guide Series)

by Harvard Business Review

Digital Tools to Make Your Next Meeting More Productive by Alexandra Samuel Meetings may seem like the ultimate holdout against the digitization of working life: After all, what’s more analog than talking directly with another person? Even though the core work of a meeting—listening to and connecting with other people—hasn’t changed, there are lots of ways technology can make that work easier and more effective. Given how much of our working lives we spend in meetings, building a digital meeting toolkit is one of the smartest investments you can make in tech-savvy productivity. Here are the tools you need. Before Your Meeting Find a group meeting time with Doodle, which lets you poll the various people who are part of your meeting and find a time that works for everyone. You’ll get the best results if you hook it up to your own calendar (so you only offer people options that actually work for you) and if you set expectations by explaining you’re using Doodle to find the time that works for as many people as possible—even if you can’t find one that works for everyone. Quickly schedule one-on-one meetings so the process of finding a time doesn’t consume more time than the meeting itself. Use Google appointment slots or Calendly to set up times when you’re available for calls or meetings, and when you want to take a meeting, share the link to your open slots. If you’re booking a call with someone in another time zone, make sure you’re actually booking the same time into your ...