What does a timer do in
a meeting?
Use a timer to maintain speed and focus during your meeting or planning session.
"This app definitely is one of, if not the, top choice for speaker timing. As a member of a legislative body, I want to use this as our permanent solution for public timing and display of time limits..."
Awesomesalsa, AppStore
Whether you work remotely or in person, when it comes to meetings, the biggest complaints have to do with time - meetings don't start and end on time, and more than half of participants feel that too much time is spent making decisions.
Most meetings have no real sense of urgency, and as a result, very little gets done, decided or decided. According to an article on HBR, some of the other most common complaints about meetings include:
- The facilitator ineffectively leads or controls the meeting.
- A few people dominate the conversation and the rest of the participants feel ignored or overlooked.
- No one is paying attention because everyone is busy doing other things or is distracted by social media.
Solving many of these problems is much easier than you think-it's just worth trying to use a timer.
Let's take a closer look at some of these problematic meeting issues and how a timer can help.
#1: Poor organization of the meeting
A presenter unable to control the pace of a meeting can throw the entire process out of whack.
When a timer is introduced, the time for the various parts, the presentations in the meeting are determined more carefully, forcing the meeting organizer to do more pre-planning. For example, he might schedule a couple of minutes for an introduction, 15 minutes for a brainstorming session, and then each participant is given three minutes to speak on the topic.
WebShare feature
#5: Spending too much time in meetings
Ticking clocks engages everyone on your team and encourages everyone to come in more prepared because they know every second counts.
#6: Too much time is spent making decisions
The decision-making phase is often where progress in the meeting process stops. This can lead to endless debates and conversations that often result in a decision being delayed until the next meeting.
Give each participant a couple of minutes to contribute to the decision, or, give everyone a minute or two to vote on their favorite ideas or tasks to move forward quickly.
Conclusion
Not only will using a timer help you stay on track, but it also has the added benefit of engaging participants, making decisions faster, and making all of your collaborative activities more streamlined and efficient.
The feeling of the meeting
#2: The conversation is dominated by just a few people
There are times when there are a few employees during a meeting who tend to take up all the time, sharing their ideas without giving anyone else a chance to speak. This leads to a lack of overall engagement and the potential loss of some game-changing ideas from people who aren't as assertive.
Setting a set amount of time for each person to share ideas or solutions during the meeting ensures that everyone gets a chance to contribute. The timer also allows the presenter to announce "time" when a person has run out of time without seeming rude or appreciating their input.
#3: Everyone gets distracted by their devices
Many things can get distracted in meetings - especially if there is no sense of urgency. Adding a timer to the meeting process creates that urgency, ensuring that people are focused on the task at hand and not on other devices.
#4: Meetings don't start and finish on time
The only thing worse than showing up to a meeting on time and then waiting twenty minutes for it to start is a meeting that doesn't end on time. Solve this problem with a meeting timer.
Tell your team that the meeting timer starts at the exact start time of the meeting and stops at the scheduled end time of the meeting-even if not everyone is in the meeting. This puts the responsibility on individual team members to show up to the meeting on time and gives the team a visual cue to stay focused as time slips away.
Meeting timing board
Are you interested in trying out a timer in your next meeting? Find out what features the app has here.
Credits:
Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/group-of-people-on-conference-room-1181396/
Photo by Mikael Blomkvist from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-at-the-table-having-a-meeting-6476184/
https://www.pexels.com/search/iphone%20point/