One of the first things you’ll do as a new manager as set up weekly team meetings. These provide a platform for aligning on goals and keeping each other up to speed on priorities and goings on. That said, having meetings for the sake of meetings can drain productivity, so it’s important to approach “all hands” meetings strategically.
You might approach your weekly team meetings by defining a set agenda for each, with templates that employees can fit their own updates into. Perhaps you use the first few minutes to articulate the top priorities for the week, and then ask each employee to provide a brief update on what they’re working on. For example, Brian Wong, founder & CEO of Kiip, asks his employees to share their PPFs for the week: Priorities, Progress and Fires. Round out the meeting by giving employees an open forum to share feedback, and practice active listening to demonstrate that their opinion matters.
Here’s a sample 30-minute “all hands” agenda for you to customize:
- Set the tone: Communicate the top team-wide priorities for the week and provide context around their importance to the company overall. (5 minutes)
- Individual updates: Allow each team member to provide their updates in a brief, formatted fashion. Three-minutes per employee is usually more than enough time. (15 minutes for a team of five)
Feedback: Close the loop on any actionable feedback received from the week prior, and open the floor to next feedback. (10 minutes)
