How to Run Effective Meetings in Asana

Meetings are an inherent part of every company. In fact, it would be impossible to run an organization without holding any of these. Meetings are an important step to share information within the company, gathering feedback for activities held, announcing launchings of new projects, and a lot more.

Most meetings are bound to fail, why?

Unfortunately, most meetings are bound to fail and there are a lot of reasons for that. Firstly, the ‘who’ part is never made clear. Yes, meetings consist of a few people that gather around the table with one main speaker. However, for the most part, many of these attendees don’t really have anything much for them in the meeting. Besides, conversations are carried on by just two or three people, including the speaker or host, most of the time.

Secondly, the ‘why’ part is also left vague. A lot of people have been heard leaving a meeting room learning nothing more than when they came in. Oftentimes, facilitators know what they are calling the meeting for but little do they know how to achieve it.

Thirdly, there is no follow-up to everything that transpired during the meeting. People are often seen coming out of board rooms with so much vigor and excitement about what was discussed in the meeting. However, nothing happens three weeks after that which makes it another failure. Is there any chance for meetings to ever succeed?

How to run effective meetings in Asana

Nothing is ever impossible, even in terms of holding successful meetings. Managers need to be aware that there are important steps to follow and that project management software can be used for this purpose, especially when meetings are done over the internet. Asana, for one, is an effective tool that can help in the conduct of meetings through its great features. Listed below are the steps in running effective meetings in Asana.

• Preparation time

This stage is about creating the agenda and knowing the purpose of the meeting. A very important question has to be answered at this early stage which is, ‘what do I want to accomplish in this meeting?’ If this meeting is just the first of a series, then, it should be made clear as to how often the meeting will happen and what tasks and milestones should be accomplished by the team.

Afterward, it is time to create an agenda that will serve as the guide for the meeting, using Asana. This is important because it will ensure that everything that needs to be discussed is taken up. Should there be something new to add to the agenda right before the meeting starts, the manager can still do that. Also, with Asana, managers can continue to update their agenda list as the meeting goes on.

Think of the agenda as the main topics to be discussed and below each of them are the specific topics to be discussed. Say, for example, a topic would be attendance. A topic under attendance would be tardiness, AWOL, and corresponding penalties.

It is also highly advisable to disseminate these agenda ahead of time so that the attendees will know what to expect and also prepare their materials and comments if they have them.

• Meeting proper

Every meeting should begin with assigning a note-taker to ensure that everything is documented and for the benefit of those who cannot make it to the meeting. It is important to make sure that this person is using the same tool as the manager so that it would be easy to collate the notes with the agenda and topics. In this case, both the manager and the note-taker should be using Asana. You can just imagine the ease of use and convenience when sharing the notes between these users.

Then, it is time to begin the meeting proper by following the order of business. It is important for the manager to know how to encourage the members to participate and air out their thoughts to the group. It is also as important for the manager to know how to keep the discussion in focus and avoid deviating from the topic to save time.

As the meeting progresses, assigning tasks should also be done and should not wait until the end of the meeting. The people responsible for them should be identified, as well as the deadlines for their tasks.

• Adjournment

The final part of the meeting is the adjournment. When a meeting is run in Asana, there is no more need to disseminate notes to the attendees as this would have already been done by the software.

Why choose Asana?

There are so many benefits in using Asana for meetings, thanks to its numerous features and capabilities. For one, when agreeing on assigned tasks and deadlines, these can be recorded and stored in Asana. It is accessible by the team so that they can check for themselves their upcoming tasks and deadlines. This feature improves accountability and transparency with their work.

Asana is not only good for running meetings with big groups as it is also perfect for one-on-ones. The added advantage of this is that users don’t even have to come face-to-face to do these one-on-one meetings. Thanks to Asana, this can be done online. Also, after this type of meeting, both the manager and the subordinate can provide feedback regarding their meeting. They can express what part they liked, as well as the actions that were done.

Asana’s features can be strengthened and its capabilities maximized when it is used with Bridge24 for Asana. This integration empowers not just the manager but the entire team as well and helps them become more productive.