The Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review

 

June 15, 2015 Follow the 8-18-1800 Rule for Meetings For a meeting to be useful, you have to have the right people – and only the right people – in the room. With too many attendees, you’ll have trouble focusing everyone’s time and attention and accomplishing anything; with too few, you might not have the right decision makers or stakeholders in the room. Before your next meeting, think about the 8-18-1800 rule: If you want to solve a problem or make a decision, invite no more than 8 people. If you want to brainstorm, you can go up to 18 people. If the purpose of the meeting is for you to provide updates, invite however many people need to hear those updates. But if everyone will be giving updates, limit the number of participants to no more than 18. If the purpose of the meeting is for you to rally the troops, go for 1,800 – or more. Adapted from “How to Know If There Are Too Many People in Your Meeting,” by Harvard Business Review Staff.

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