midVentures is a distributed company, we have several people away from our Chicago headquarters, so when we have to bring everyone together for a staff meeting, people often ask us how we make it work. Here is our method for having rare, to the point, quick, and effective, congregations.

To begin, a serious meeting is not a place for brainstorming. It is for presenting previously synthesized ideas to the full team. Attempting to have ten people brainstorm over a concept around a table meeting, with three skyping in from around the nation, is ineffective.

Secondly, have an agenda. Tech companies are notorious for being loose on structure, and we are no outlier. However, when you are burning the time of the whole company, in the same room, eliminating roadblocks and delays is important. Remember that the point of these meetings to bring everyone to the same page on for the company projects, not to change the corporate slogan, or debate tea varieties.

Have everyone prepare a three to five minute presentation on their project(s). This will often be in teams, as multiple people work on the same project. Have one person present it, there is no need to have people repeat the same information.

Have snacks. Maybe some drinks. Keep peoples hands occupied, and they will fidget less.

Have a note taker, post the notes to your corporate wiki. When you do this, all the action items for the coming week are public, no one can duck their responsibilities or dodge assignments. We do not have a problem with that here at midVentures, but it makes for good humor when someone misses a dead line.

Finally, at the start of every meeting, get the dirty laundry out. Go over the last weeks notes on to do´s, see which ones were done. The ones that did not happen, figure out why. Sometimes people have a fair excuse, such as the client won´t answer emails, etc. In those cases, just make an action item for the coming week. Simple.

We do these as they are needed, it has become a weekly excursion. But, at least here, we as a team seem to enjoy them. We all get along famously, so putting us all together for a quick talk is hardly a punishment.