Meetings are an integral part of business life. Whether you’re having difficulty coming up with an action plan, aren’t sure what to do on a project, or want to bounce ideas off of your teammates, scheduling meetings is the default response in most business situations.  Holding a meeting can be the right decision in some cases, but not all. The following are some factors to consider when deciding whether or not to schedule a meeting.   Have You Done Strategic Thinking About the Project?   If you aren’t clear about what you’re doing for a project, you might feel like you want to schedule a meeting with the stakeholders involved to gain clarity. This has the potential to waste your time and that of

Physical workspace is something that companies can effectively manage without spending a fortune, and it allows them to increase productivity. Placing the right type of people next to each other at work can dramatically improve organizational performance. According to a study performed by researchers at Harvard Business School, there are three different kinds of workers:  1. Productive workers: Productive workers are highly productive but don’t always produce quality work.  2. Quality workers: Quality workers produce work of superior quality, but they aren’t always productive.  3. Generalists: Generalists are at an average level of productivity and quality.  The study found that pairing workers with opposite strengths had the best results in terms of improving productivity. Namely, sitting productive workers and

Meetings are meant to improve productivity and efficiency. It is a time when people gather to get on the same page, create awareness of what needs to be done, and hold each other accountable to ensure that tasks get completed. If not planned out well, however, meetings can be a waste of time, and ultimately, hurt your company’s bottom line.    It’s important to schedule meetings for the right amount of time and with the right people, always starting with a clear objective in mind. Assigning someone to lead the meeting is key to ensure that it doesn’t go off the rails. But it’s not just the meetings themselves that can hurt efficiency and productivity if not carefully planned out.  The process of scheduling meetings, inviting

In a typical business day, employees use a plethora of applications to carry out their job duties, including email, CRM tools, ERP software, and meeting room booking systems. This has brought greater productivity and convenience to people’s work lives, but it has also created the need to maintain multiple login credentials. This can become a hassle when people forget or lose their passwords, as they often do.  Single Sign-On (SSO) can help to streamline the management of user accounts. Although SSO has been around for a while, it has only recently begun to gain more adoption. SSO is an authentication process that allows users to access multiple applications with a single set of login credentials. This enables them to use multiple applications, websites, or programs without having

Nothing kills productivity and innovation faster than having too many meetings. Recurring meetings are often the culprit. If you’re a middle manager, you likely spend 35% of your time in meetings. If you’re in upper level management, make that 50%. Recurring meetings are problematic because they typically last about an hour and lack a clear agenda. Regular communication is important, but it’s key to ensure that your recurring meetings are focused and productive.  We’ve all been a part of weekly recurring meetings including 20+ people that have been going on for years. Everyone comes to the meeting because they are supposed to but they aren´t really getting anything out of it. Some people are even looking at their phones or doing work on their laptops during these