Effective leaders know that one of their primary responsibilities is to provide focus, direction, and strategic alignment to their teams. This calls for regular planning, discussions, and open dialogues. The way to achieve it is by holding quarterly team meetings using meeting management tools.
Quarterly team meetings are crucial for bringing the team on the same page and empowering them to work toward strategic objectives. By regularly planning for projects, tasks, processes, and workflows, leaders can inspire their teams to stay committed to organizational goals.
In this guide to planning quarterly team meetings, we will define what they are, why they’re important, and provide a step-by-step guide for conducting them.
What are quarterly team meetings?
Once every three months, quarterly team meetings allow teams to get together and discuss all aspects of their projects and tasks. By giving team members a chance to discuss their goals and challenges, these meetings foster open team communication, strategic planning, and team synergy. All these collectively help improve overall productivity.
Quarterly team meetings help with the planning and implementation of long-term, medium-term, and short-term objectives. Teams can discuss their progress on long-term goals, monitor their performance on medium-term objectives, and analyze what tasks they can accomplish in the short term in alignment with the larger goals.
Why are quarterly team meetings important?
By planning quarterly team meetings, organizations can provide a viable framework for formulating and accomplishing goals. Using meeting management tools, managers can identify priorities, allocate resources, and demonstrate how individual contributions are aggregating toward team goals.
Quarterly team meetings help managers divide bigger goals into smaller and more viable tasks. This helps leaders monitor task updates more regularly. Regular meetings enhance team collaboration because individuals know what each one of them brings to the table. They also help managers inspire their teams and remind them of the importance of what they do.
With efficient meeting planning, you can also reduce the number of unnecessary meetings. Finally, these meetings are also occasions to celebrate the teams’ successes. This helps improve employee morale and motivation.
Pre-meeting planning
Quarterly team meetings don’t begin at the venue. They start long before with pre-meeting planning. You can make your team meetings more effective by following these steps:
1. Set clear objectives
Goal setting is the first stage in planning quarterly team meetings. Managers should consult senior management to understand the organization’s goals and identify how their teams can contribute. Such discussions on goals would also clarify the exact contributions various teams are expected to make during the timeframe.
Heycollab’s Chat enables managers to have real-time, one-on-one, private, or public conversations to set meeting goals.
2. Draft an agenda
Planning quarterly team meetings involves drafting an agenda specific to the team. The leader should have clarity on projects, tasks, and timelines. They should be able to assign the right resources to the tasks. While setting team targets, it’s also important to involve team members. Participation will increase employee engagement in the process.
Get your team members to work with you through Heycollab’s Docs to create and collaborate on documents.
3. Choose an appropriate meeting platform
For remote and hybrid teams, it’s not about choosing a venue but a platform. The platform should facilitate multiple modes of communication and give information on projects. What’s important is not to use multiple platforms because it would be tedious for team members to monitor communication.
Heycollab brings together all the functionalities you need for team collaboration. You get Tasks, Docs, Chat, Calls, Time Tracking, and more through highly affordable plans.
4. Give access to resources
For efficient meeting planning, team members need to see the big picture and their roles. Giving people ad hoc or last-minute access will be counterproductive. Managers must ensure that employees can access all necessary resources, data, and tools. Moreover, they shouldn’t have to repeatedly ask permission to do so.
Files from Heycollab give you unlimited space and folders. You can save all relevant documents and invite team members to deliberate and contribute.
Conducting the meeting
Even with the best planning tactics, a meeting will depend on your ability to conduct it. By following these steps, you can make sure that your quarterly team meetings are productive.
1. Give people time to prepare
Even if you always hold your quarterly team meetings on a particular date, giving people time for preparation is good. Share your agenda in advance and encourage them to access additional resources. Mention key tasks and timelines so that team members can give relevant feedback.
This is another area where Heycollab can be of immense help. You can give people access to Files and Docs so that they can adequately prepare.
2. Start with a positive attitude
Don’t start with the objectives of the next quarter or look for opportunities to criticize. Always begin your quarterly team meetings on an optimistic note. Highlight the team’s successes and appreciate the members’ contributions in the previous quarter. Get employees to mention tasks or processes that would have given them satisfaction.
3. Make it engaging
An overlooked aspect of meetings is the diversity of content. Presentations can feel monotonous if they all look the same. Not all documents need to be in the form of text. You can make infographics, charts, and even videos to state your case. Be creative and encourage employees to share their input.
4. Encourage participation
While planning quarterly team meetings, ensure that you have adequate room for participation. This shouldn’t be implied but explicitly stated. Encourage team members to express their views and actively listen to their concerns and queries. Foster open discussion and dialogue, and you will improve team morale.
5. Efficiently manage time
Efficient meeting planning requires a clear start and finish time. Communicate to employees how much time you would need for the meeting. While developing your meeting agenda, devote specific time slots for your remarks, team members’ questions, and group discussions.
Heycollab’s Time Tracking will help you measure your tasks, projects, and tasks. You can use this handy feature when planning your quarterly team meetings.
6. Take regular breaks
Once you figure out how much time you would need, divide that into sessions. This will give team members adequate breaks. That will help them be more engaged in the process and come up with creative solutions. These breaks will also give employees time and space to engage in casual discussions with their colleagues about the meeting.
Post-meeting follow-up
Managers should also follow these steps after their quarterly team meetings to enhance team communication and business productivity.
1. Distribute minutes of the meeting
Assign an individual or individuals to collate all the points discussed in the meeting. The manager should also be involved in the process. After that, share the minutes of the meeting with the participants. With Heycollab, you can use Docs and ask participants to create and collaborate. This makes sure that nothing gets missed.
2. Prioritize tasks
Quarterly team meetings will produce action items for the team and its members. Listing all of them may bring clarity, but it can burden employees. You need to rank those tasks and choose the most important ones to work on. You should convey these prioritized action items to your team members and explain why some are more crucial than others.
3. Assign responsibilities
Once you know what tasks and processes to focus on, the next step is to assign those responsibilities to individuals. There shouldn’t be any duplication, and the tasks should be conveyed to those specific individuals with viable timelines. For greater transparency, share the list of assigned roles with everyone.
4. Gather feedback
Talk to your team members after the quarterly meeting to understand how it went. Did they understand the recap of the previous quarter? Did they get clarity on their tasks for the next three months? Did they have access to key resources before and after the meeting?
5. Review the managerial role
As a manager, it’s important to analyze your performance during quarterly team meetings. Were you able to brief everyone thoroughly? Could you persuade the management of your team’s performance and get clarity on its objectives? Are your team members inspired for the next quarter?
Heycollab: For planning better quarterly team meetings
Heycollab is an all-inclusive project management and communication tool that gives you multiple functionalities. With this affordable platform, you get Tasks, Chat, Docs, Calls, Time Tracking, and much more.
You get Dashboards for task assignments, Files with unlimited space and folders, and Docs for teams to collaborate on documents. You can use Chats for real-time, one-on-one, private, public, or group chats.
Remote and hybrid teams can use Heycollab’s Video Calling, which comes with recording, screen sharing, and more. Time Tracking will help you efficiently manage your time before, during, and after your quarterly team meetings.
Sign up for free, book a demo, or contact us to learn how Heycollab can enhance your collaboration and communication.