The rise of the 15-minute meeting

Although 30 minutes is typically the default for many work meetings, more people are now switching over to shorter, 15-minute meetings instead. According to an analysis of Microsoft Teams data, 15-minute meetings currently make up 60% of all calendared gatherings.

Employees also tend to prefer shorter meetings. According to a new poll of over 2,000 U.S. workers from CivicScience, over 75% of employees said shorter meetings are more inefficient. A third of respondents also said they stop paying attention in meetings after 15 minutes anyway.

"The death of your day is too many 'half-hours,'" said Jayne Sandman, who runs a branding and marketing firm in Washington, D.C.

Shorter meetings can save both time and money, Chaker writes. For example, Rita King, EVP at the workplace consulting firm Science House, helped an organization cut down three daily hour-long check-in meetings to 15 minutes each, which helped the company save 4,200 hours a year or $250,000.

How to run your 15-minute meeting

Before scheduling a meeting, Rahim Charania, managing partner at a real estate investment firm, says three questions must first be answered:

• What are the issues being discussed at the meeting?
• Why is a meeting needed?
• What would be the best outcome for the meeting?

Answering these questions beforehand "forces everyone to do the majority of their thinking before the meeting," Charania said.

Once a meeting is scheduled, these four tips can help you streamline your time while still getting everything you need done:

1. Only invite people who really need to be there

According to King, it's important to ask yourself who really needs to be in a meeting since having too many people would ultimately just waste their time.

2. Make sure to stay on topic

If you clarify the purpose of a meeting ahead of time, it'll be easier to meet the objective. Focusing on one smaller topic rather than several aspects of a broad topic can also help ensure that a meeting does not run over time.

For example, you can focus on one aspect of a budget instead of the whole spreadsheet or specific attributes of two potential hires vs. everyone in the latest round of interviews.

3. Have participants prepare ahead of time

According to Brian Elliott, a former Slack executive and co-founder of the flexible work think tank Future Forum, sending reading materials to participants before a meeting can help them be more prepared. This will also make the meeting productive right from the start.

4. Stack meetings to maximize your time

Scheduling multiple 15-minute meetings right after each other is often better than having them spread out through the day, said Ashley Laabs, a copywriter. Having a short pause between meetings can allow them to run long. It can also disrupt focused work, which can be started but not completed.

According to Laabs, she schedules 15-minute meetings back-to-back for an hour before lunch to maximize her time. "That way, I know I'll want to be walking away by lunchtime," she said.

Overall, "[t]he time you spend in a meeting is not equal to the impact or value you get out of it," said Colette Stallbaumer, who manages Microsoft's Future of Work team. (Chaker, Wall Street Journal, 10/2)

Drawing on best practices — as well as lessons from across our own organization — we created this useful infographic to guide if you really need a meeting (and if so, how to maximize everyone's time).