How a little preparation can make shared time more useful without treating every conversation as a problem
By Arbab Naseebullah Kasi, Chief Executive Officer - CEO, Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc.
Distinct instruments gather around a shared point of focus, a metaphor for purposeful collaboration. Original conceptual painting.
The conversation has been lively. Several useful points have surfaced. Everyone has contributed something, and the allotted time is almost over. Then someone asks what happens next, and the room becomes less certain.
Was a decision made? Was an idea merely discussed? Is someone expected to act, or will the same question return next week?
This is an illustrative situation, but it points to an ordinary difficulty. A meeting can contain worthwhile conversation without giving people a clear way to continue the work. The answer is not necessarily to make the conversation shorter. It may be to make its purpose more understandable before it begins.
Shared time is valuable. It can help people resolve a disagreement, understand a difficult problem or build a relationship that written messages cannot easily replace. Taking care with that time means asking what people need from being together and how they will recognise that the conversation helped.
Begin with the reason for gathering
A topic is not always enough to explain why a meeting is needed. A calendar entry saying “community event” could mean an update, a decision about the venue, a discussion of accessibility or an invitation to generate new ideas.
Those purposes require different preparation and different people.
Consider an illustrative team planning a small public exhibition. If the purpose is to choose between two available spaces, participants need the relevant facts and the authority to make or recommend that choice. If the purpose is to explore possible themes, asking everyone to arrive ready to approve a venue would be premature.
Describe the intended result in ordinary language. You might need to identify the missing information before a decision can be made. That is a legitimate outcome. So is understanding the source of a disagreement well enough to decide how to address it.
The purpose should be honest. Do not describe a meeting as consultation if the decision has already been made and participants can only hear an announcement.
Take complaints about meetings seriously without assuming every meeting is waste
There is a reason this subject attracts strong feelings. Meetings can occupy the same time people need to do the work being discussed.
Microsoft's May 2023 Work Trend Index reported that inefficient meetings ranked first among respondents' productivity disruptions, while too many meetings ranked third. It also reported that 55 percent said next steps at the end of meetings were unclear. The survey involved 31,000 full-time employed or self-employed workers across 31 markets, surveyed in February and March 2023. These are historical self-reported experiences, not an objective measure of every meeting's value or proof that a particular technique will solve the problem. Microsoft 2023 Work Trend Index
The useful response is to examine the meetings you can influence. Which ones leave people better able to proceed? Which repeatedly end with uncertainty? Which exist mainly because they have always appeared on the calendar?
A frustrating meeting does not mean the participants lacked goodwill. The format may simply have asked them to do something that the preparation, time or authority did not support.
Ask whether people need to respond at the same time
Some work benefits from a live exchange. Questions can be answered immediately, misunderstandings corrected and competing considerations explored together. Other work may be handled through a clear written update with a reasonable opportunity to respond.
GitLab's public handbook provides a real organisational example. Its remote-meeting guidance asks organisers to consider whether an asynchronous approach could achieve the desired outcome, while recognising the need for a balance with live discussion. It also expects a shared agenda with context and an understandable purpose. These are GitLab's documented practices, checked in October 2026, rather than universal rules or measured results for every workplace. GitLab meeting guidance
For the exhibition team, a list of confirmed delivery dates may not require everyone to join a call. A disagreement about how two competing layout options affect visitors might benefit from discussion.
Written communication still requires care. State what response is needed, who needs to respond and when. Otherwise, replacing a meeting may simply create a long message thread that nobody knows how to finish.
Choose the format around the work and the people. Language needs, accessibility, urgency and the sensitivity of the subject can all affect what is appropriate.
Invite contribution rather than collecting attendance
An invitation should help a person understand why their presence matters. They may hold information, represent an affected group, have decision authority or need to help shape the next step.
Avoid assuming that everyone who needs an update must also attend the whole conversation. At the same time, do not exclude someone whose knowledge or perspective is essential merely to make the participant count smaller.
In the illustrative exhibition project, the person responsible for visitor access may need to contribute before a venue is chosen. Inviting them only after the decision would turn a useful perspective into a late problem to solve.
When someone cannot attend, consider an appropriate way to obtain their input in advance. Explain how the outcome will be shared afterward. Do not promise that every preference will be adopted, but make it clear how relevant concerns will be considered.
For formal committees or regulated decisions, follow the applicable participation, notice and recordkeeping requirements. General meeting advice does not replace those obligations.
Prepare enough context for people to think
Preparation should make the discussion easier, not transfer a large amount of hidden work to the participants.
Give people the relevant background, the question to be addressed and any material they genuinely need to review. Distinguish essential reading from optional detail. A large attachment sent shortly before the start is not the same as a usable briefing.
Atlassian's public page-led meeting guidance offers another concrete approach. It recommends a written page setting out context, purpose and intended outcomes, with time for participants to read before discussion. Its guidance explicitly says the approach need not be used for every meeting and is particularly suited to decisions or consensus-building. This is a documented facilitation method, checked in October 2026, not a recommendation to buy its software or a guarantee of results. Atlassian page-led meeting guidance
A small team can adapt the underlying idea without adopting a detailed template. For the venue discussion, a short comparison of the available spaces may be enough. Missing facts should remain visible rather than being filled with optimistic assumptions.
If people have not had a fair chance to understand the material, make room for that reality. Rushing toward a decision can create apparent agreement without informed participation.
Keep the discussion connected to its purpose
A facilitator does not have to control every sentence. They do need to notice when the conversation has moved so far from the intended work that the group may run out of time without addressing it.
When a new topic appears, ask whether it changes the current decision or needs a separate conversation. Record a worthwhile issue so it is not lost, but do not assume that writing it down commits the group to solving it immediately.
Leave room for information that genuinely changes the situation. A meeting about choosing an exhibition space may discover that neither option meets an essential requirement. Continuing toward the original choice would then be less useful than acknowledging the problem.
Make it possible for people to disagree clearly and respectfully. Silence is not reliable evidence of agreement, particularly where there are differences in authority or confidence. Invite relevant concerns without demanding that everyone speak simply to prove participation.
The aim is a useful exchange, not a performance in which the agenda is completed regardless of what the discussion reveals.
Name the decision without inventing agreement
As the conversation closes, distinguish what has been decided from what has merely been suggested.
Perhaps the group has selected a venue. Perhaps it has recommended one, subject to approval. Perhaps it has agreed to obtain additional information before choosing. Those are different outcomes, and the record should preserve the difference.
Read back the important conclusion in plain language. Include any condition that changes what can happen next. If the decision depends on confirmation of accessibility arrangements or a revised quotation, do not let that condition disappear from the summary.
Where disagreement remains, record the unresolved issue appropriately. A tidy set of notes is not worth creating a false impression that everyone supported the same choice.
Also check authority. A productive discussion cannot confer approval that the participants do not have the right to give. If someone else must decide, the next step may be to prepare a clear recommendation rather than announce a final result.
Make the next action possible to carry out
An action needs enough detail for someone to recognise what they have accepted. A general instruction to follow up may leave several people assuming that somebody else will do it.
Confirm who is responsible, what they will do and any agreed timing. If the person needs support, information or approval before beginning, make that dependency visible. Do not assign commitments to an absent colleague without checking through the appropriate process.
Keep the record brief enough to use. The most important decisions and next actions should be easy to find, rather than buried in a transcript of every comment. Share them with the right people through an appropriate channel, respecting confidentiality and access limits.
A recording is not a substitute for a clear outcome, and recording should follow applicable consent and organisational requirements. Some conversations should not be recorded at all.
When circumstances change, update the understanding openly. A missed date may require a revised plan, not a quiet assumption that the commitment no longer matters.
Give recurring meetings permission to change
A recurring appointment can remain useful long after its original purpose has faded. It can also continue long after it has stopped helping.
Periodically ask what the meeting now makes possible. Is the frequency appropriate? Are the same people still needed? Could part of the update be shared another way, leaving the live time for the discussion that benefits from it?
Make changes with the relevant people and explain how they will stay informed. Cancelling a meeting without replacing an essential communication route can create a new problem.
Not every gathering needs a decision. A supportive conversation, a relationship-building check-in or an open exchange of ideas can have a valid purpose. Naming that purpose honestly is more useful than forcing every human interaction into an action list.
For the next meeting you organise, start with one question: what should be clearer, resolved or possible when we finish? Then prepare the conversation to serve that answer.
Which meeting in your week would become more useful if its purpose and ending were a little clearer?
