How to decide meeting length

- How long should you allow for your meeting?…Well, I don't like 'as long as it takes'.…I think you certainly should…plan on having a finishing time,…because the people who come to the meeting…need to know how long it's going to last.…They might want to arrange other things…in the rest of their day.…So we need a start time and a finish time.…As I mentioned earlier, the length of the meeting…depends largely on the type of meeting.…If it's a regular team meeting, it should be 15-30 minutes.…But if it's a problem-solving meeting,…it might be half a day, or even a whole day.…

For the other two meetings, communication,…where you're telling a large group of employees…about what's going on,…and progress-monitoring,…where they're telling you how they're getting on,…you can work out the length…by how much you need to present,…or how much you need to get reports on.…And I would say, if in doubt,…go for shorter rather than longer.…That'll force you to have an efficient meeting,…and the worst case is that…you'll have to schedule another one…