I have a lot of weekly scheduled recurring meetings.  Some I’ve scheduled.  Some I’ve been invited to.  We all like to showoff our Outlook calendar to show how busy (and hopefully important) we are.

But how many of these meetings are actually productive?  If we all had a day of no meetings, wouldn’t we get more things done?  Of course, this depends on your job function, but I’m a huge advocate of fewer meetings. 

So how do I accomplish this?  By making the meetings I do have more productive.  Through setting realistic agendas, by taking action items, and by allowing team members to make decisions, not just do status updates.  Having WebEx services around certainly helps.  As one of the product marketing managers, not only have I gotten to know the features well, but I’ve experienced the benefits. 

I’d love to hear from you on how you make your meetings more productive and how you use technology to achieve your goals.