Raise your hand if you’ve ever found yourself running a meeting that got away from you. You couldn’t keep everyone on point. The subject strayed waaaaay far away from what you intended. The meeting went far over the allotted time and at the end of it you didn’t feel like you accomplished anything, despite your best intentions.

Running a meeting is both an art and a science, with equal parts going with the flow and following a prescribed path. Following are five tips that might help next time you find yourself in charge of a meeting where you need to accomplish a specific goal. The examples below are for planning a retirement party, but these tips apply for everything from party planning to a deep dive into a company’s financial situation.

Stick to an agenda.

While it isn’t always practical or appropriate to the audience, I try to have a written agenda that I share with meeting attendees either on screen if the meeting is online, or out loud if it is in person. Jot down the agenda you want to follow and make sure you can cover the subject matter in the allotted time. I’ll use a completely  agenda could look like this:

Meeting to Discuss Sarah’s Retirement Party

1. Introductions
2. Venue
3. Theme
4. Menu
5. Decorations
6. Tasks
7. Next meeting

Set expectations.

Start the meeting by introducing yourself and telling everyone what you want to accomplish and how you intend to do it. Also tell everyone when you expect the meeting to end, and how participants can reach out if they have to leave early. For example:

Thank you for joining us today. I’m Stacey, and I’m the Director of Communications. Today we’re going to figure out what we need to do to plan a retirement party for our CTO, Sarah Jones. We’re going to start with introductions, then discuss the venue, the theme, the menu, and decorations. Then we’ll assign tasks and determine if we need another meeting to touch base before the party. I have a hard stop at 2 PM. If you need to leave early, please leave me your email or phone number before you go so I can follow up. Let’s start with introductions.

Allow everyone to have a voice.

If the meeting is collaborative, make sure you ask everyone—even those who haven’t volunteered a comment or suggestion—if they have anything to add. If the meeting is instructive (i.e. you are providing information or direction to a team), be sure to save time for questions.

What are the rest of your thoughts on a venue?

Know when to end the meeting.

There’s no rule that a meeting has to last as long as you had planned. Here are a few ways a meeting can change and how you can handle it:

• If you’re almost finished and have just a few more items to discuss, ask if everyone is ok to stay a few more minutes to wrap it up. Can everyone stay for just ten minutes more so we can wrap this up?
• If it seems like the subject is too broad or there are too many unanswered questions to accomplish what you intended, agree on a time and a subject for a follow-up meeting: I think we have all of the information we need to make a decision. I’ll reach out to Sarah about her availability and we’ll reconvene at a later date.
• If you are only 15 minutes into a meeting you expected to last an hour, and your business is concluded and everyone’s input and questions have been heard, end the meeting and give everyone back their time. Ok, I think we’re done here. Good job! Your team will thank you for it and be more likely to be active participants in future meetings!

Wrap it up.

Always end your meeting by summarizing the take-aways, reiterating next steps, agreeing on the next meeting if needed, and thanking everyone for their time. It looks like this:

Ok, it looks like we accomplished a lot today—the party will be at the ABC Events Center and we’re going to go with a luau theme and a Hawaiian menu with tiki drinks. John is going to rent the space, Janice will give us some pricing on decorations, and Alice is going to call her cousin the caterer to talk about a menu. Let’s meet again in two weeks to touch base and see what we still need to do—I’ll use the meeting scheduler to find some time on everyone’s calendar. Thanks so much for your time and contributions!

Follow these guidelines and you can run your next meeting like the boss you are! And if your company needs help with an upcoming meeting, contact us and we’ll be happy to facilitate or provide a customized workshop!