A Good Communications Meeting is Measured by the Clarity It Generates

By Amy Clay, Counselor

We’ve all been in this public involvement planning meeting. Maybe you (like me) led them for years.

Someone pulls up the agenda. We go around the table. Everyone reports what they’ve been working on since the last time we did this. We discuss a few deadlines. Maybe a little insight is shared, a dash of advice sprinkled in. We decide what needs follow up. And an hour later, a room full of smart, experienced people leaves the table (or hangs up their Teams) and goes back to work.

Everyone is informed and assured their teammates are getting things done. But what did you really get out of all those smart, experienced professionals?

On large, complex infrastructure projects, I’ve come to believe that one of the easiest ways to improve project communications is to rethink what we ask people to do when we have them all together for one brief, shining moment of undivided attention. Let’s dig in.

Share the Status Before the Meeting

Project updates are important for accountability and staying on task. But most of them don’t require a meeting.

What was completed? What’s coming up? What needs review and input? What are the deadlines the team is working against? Put those items into an email update and let people respond in their own time.

Now you can use your meeting for things that are harder to accomplish by email: making decisions, identifying risk, comparing perspectives and solving problems. In short, a productive conversation that makes use of your team’s pooled expertise.

It’s a small change, but it shifts the question from “What has everyone been doing?” to “What do we need to figure out together?”

Put the Right Questions on the Agenda

A good communications meeting agenda doesn’t just list topics. It prompts discussion.

In lieu of a general topic like “Upcoming Construction,” ask: What upcoming work is most likely to affect the general public, and where do we anticipate confusion or concern?

Instead of “Media Relations,” ask: What questions would we expect a reporter to ask us right now? What would we like reporters and editors to better understand?

Instead of “Public Involvement,” ask: What is everybody hearing from the community? What’s coming up in our socials, our voicemails, our conversations as we go about our work and our lives? Do we need to change anything? Is our messaging effective or does it need tweaked?

Think of your agenda as a conversation starter. Open-ended questions provide food for thought and invite people to bring their expertise to the conversation rather than just reporting on their assignments.

Take Advantage of the Expertise Sitting at Your Table

This becomes especially important on large infrastructure projects involving multiple agencies, consultants, technical teams and decision-makers.

These are all busy people. Getting them all together can be tough. When you make it happen, don’t waste that time reviewing information they could have read beforehand.

Use this as your chance to ask the engineer to help you put a complicated plan into layman’s terms. Ask your senior communications staff what’s concerning them right now. Look ahead as a group and identify issues nobody’s talking about yet.

That’s how you make the most of that hour of undivided attention.

A Better Meeting Makes for Better Communications

Good meetings aren’t necessarily shorter (although that’s a nice bonus – who doesn’t like to get a few minutes back?) They’re just more purposeful. Less checking off items, more productive discussion.

The best communications meetings leave the team with greater clarity about what’s ahead. Decisions that need made. Issues to keep an eye on. Stories to get ready to tell.

A status report tells you where you’ve been. A good meeting helps you decide where you’re going next.

Rasor is an award-winning Cincinnati marketing agency delivering communications, design and public relations strategies for clients in health care, municipal and infrastructure sectors, and B2B and B2C markets. Contact us at info@gorasor.com or 513-793-1234 to find out how Rasor can help your organization lean into effective and efficient communications.