Unproductive and too-long board meetings can be detrimental to your organization. Neglecting the discipline and art form involved in running productive board meetings will only hurt your company in the long run. Nevertheless, ineffective meetings are estimated to cost over $37 billion annually.
However, specific rules and principles that lean out the process (such as adhering to time constraints) ensure productivity reigns supreme during meetings. Additionally, shoring up on time management will maximize the minutes of every meeting so that not even a second is wasted.
This article explores how long board meetings last and the factors that influence their duration.
Additionally, it covers the best practices for the executive session board meetings.
Factors affecting board meeting duration
The board meeting timings often come down to how complex the agenda is. Meetings centered around issues of strategic importance like mergers, acquisitions, or decision-making often demand further discussion and analysis, extending their length.
In contrast, meetings focused on administrative updates, general developments or minor issues can be wrapped up more quickly.
Another crucial factor is good preparation and efficient meeting management, which are key to keeping directors meeting on schedule. When each board chair takes the time to review all the relevant information and have necessary discussions beforehand, meetings tend to run more smoothly.
Finally, the meeting frequency influences their duration. When senior employees meet more often, they can delve deeper into specific topics without feeling rushed to cover everything in one sitting. On the other hand, less regular gatherings may take longer because there are many issues to address, and more time is needed to catch everyone up on developments.
- Useful reading: how to run a board meeting?
How long does a board meeting last?
The board meeting time can vary quite a bit depending on the type of organization, industry, and company size. Let’s break down each aspect below.
Organization type
In public companies, meetings usually last around four to six hours due to the need to cover complex topics like compliance, board effectiveness, governance, and shareholder interests.
- Useful reading: how to measure board effectiveness?
Private companies, which have fewer regulatory requirements, often keep their meetings shorter — typically between two to four hours — focusing more on operational matters and strategic direction.
Non-profit organizations typically have board meetings that last between one and two hours when held monthly, and up to eight hours for quarterly meetings. As a rule, these meetings focus on fundraising and community impact.
Industry norms and organizational size
Understandably, the length of special meetings depends heavily on the industry in which a particular company operates.
In highly regulated sectors like finance or healthcare, the management team arranges much longer meetings because they need to address complex compliance issues. On the other hand, service-based companies usually have shorter, more focused meetings that concentrate on general reviews and quick client check-ins.
It is seen that project-based companies, due to the unpredictable nature of their work, often have more frequent and longer meetings. Such might encompass, for instance, the daily meet-ups with a chief financial officer or other board member, the weekly reviews, and the ad hoc or client meetings.
Common types of meetings across organizations
Regardless of industry or organization size, most companies have a few key types of meetings at one level or another. These include:
- Weekly team meetings last a few hours, depending on the agenda and number of attendees.
- Weekly 1-on-1s take 30-45 minutes to focus on individual progress and feedback.
- Quarterly planning meetings can take up a full day, covering strategy and goals for the upcoming quarter.
- Annual planning meetings often extend over two full days and are crucial for setting the company’s direction for the year.
- State of the company meetings generally last up to 90 minutes, overviewing the company’s performance and future outlook.
Best practices for board meeting length
Time spent in board meetings can be effectively used with the help of adopting good governance practices and proper time management. However, it is equally crucial to devote sufficient attention to meeting minutes and issues that only the board is capable of addressing.
Below are the practices for productive meetings.
Keeping board members engaged
Studies show that 5-to-15-minute-long meetings receive the most sustained attention, with 91% of people still listening throughout this period. However, there could be too many topics to broach in such a short time – in which case, the same results show 84% engagement levels up to 30 minutes. Once board meetings persist beyond that point, the numbers sink to 73%.
Note that it’s quite common for many CEOs to aim for board meetings that last less than a half-hour.
Maximizing your meeting minutes
On a larger scale, one board meeting at an FTSE 100 company in a regulated sector can cost up to £250,000. These kinds of meetings take approximately 100 days to plan. As such, longer run times are understandable.
Still, if these high-level corporate meetings regularly last over 2 hours, there’s likely a deficiency somewhere in the process. Despite extended meeting lengths, the findings suggest there’s a need to filter and streamline content down to the most crucial and engaging information. Leaders and executives must ensure meaningful, profitable, and future-focused interactions among the boards.
Whether it lasts 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 2 hours, avoid planning a meeting that uses the group setting to review operations and procedures. Furthermore, don’t fall into a rut where these encounters are something you just ‘do.’
Content is king
We’ve established that successful board meetings come down to maximizing your minutes. Meaning, your organization must abide by certain principles to stay on track and finish on time.
It’s a well-known best practice to prioritize topic matter that’s linked to decisions and motions during your board meetings.
Many industry experts cite the ineffectiveness of reports that only provide information without referencing any further motions or decisions. Much of the time, it’s best that a CEO discusses this specific kind of information with their team or a separate, smaller committee.
While ‘information-only reports’ might sometimes be a necessity, adding such an item to a board meeting topic list requires some careful deliberation. Meetings should only broach these subjects when they’re integral to overall functions and procedures.
Staying on track
Implementing a strict consent agenda keeps meetings on track and to the point. When board members receive these agendas with enough time to prepare, it allows them to raise potential matters of concern before the meeting. Time won’t start mounting, nor will board members run out of time to discuss issues they deem vital.
It’s integral to produce thoroughly nuanced agendas that enhance the flow of your board meeting. Shoddily written motions and poorly researched reports muddle your overall mission, message, and vision.
Of course, agendas are ongoing and need constant finagling and amendments to remain relevant while your organization continues growing.
For instance, the agenda for a startup marketing company’s board meeting should drastically differ from its 1st year compared to its 5th. In year 1, meetings might need to occur consistently as the organization tries to gain footing. So, a half-hour bi-weekly video conference might provide the time efficiency and snappiness that prevents board members from tuning out of the discussion.
Whereas, the hypothetical marketing company is on firmer ground after 5 years. And it might make more sense to have quarterly board meetings last 1.5 hours with all the bells and whistles.
Common challenges of effective meetings
Time-related challenges remain inevitable and interfere with meetings even if organizers try to plan everything to the smallest detail. Two of the most common issues are meetings that run too long and those that wrap up too quickly, both of which leave useful time on the table.
Excessive meetings typically take place when the agenda is overloaded with too many complex items or last-minute topics are added without proper planning. From such overrunning arrangements, there is frustration, reduced productivity, and decision fatigue to mention but a few. Obviously, decision-making quality can be negatively affected.
At the same time, some meetings last shorter than expected. This stems from a weak agenda, lack of engagement, or the situation when some topics are not covered in detail. However, if a meeting does end earlier, it’s better to use the additional time and introduce new concerns, or deal with unresolved issues.
Lay the foundation for effective board meetings
A meandering, poorly planned, ill-researched meeting wastes both time and money — the two most critical factors in business.
Furthermore, directionless and lengthy board meetings cost businesses opportunities to expand and improve. Instead of passing motions or exchanging vital information, the lines of communication clog, and deeper-rooted problems persist.
In contrast, making those painstaking efforts to nuance and adjust your agenda to ensure timely, relevant, and engaging meetings can help your organization reach unforeseen heights.
Summing up, let’s define the main conclusions from the article:
- The agenda is the cornerstone of an efficient meeting. So it’s critical to outline the key topics and allocate time for each, prioritizing the most critical issues.
- Set strict time limits for specific matters to ensure that the group does not get sidetracked or have a meeting go on for too long.
- Encourage all board members to come prepared, sending them the materials in advance.
- If a meeting ends early, use the remaining time for strategic planning or to address emerging issues.
- Incorporate technologies into meetings to facilitate communication and time tracking. For this consider board portal software.
- Useful reading: what is a board portal?
For maximum organizational efficiency and board meeting productivity, iDeals Board has a comprehensive set of tools. The board portal software includes the following features aimed at improving the organization’s operation:
- Security measures include multi-factor authentication and single sign-on authentication to ensure secure access to the platform.
- The dashboard provides an overview of upcoming meetings, tasks, document links, board book updates, and reading progress.
- Agenda builder allows users to pre-set common agenda items, attach documents, set item durations, and add voting sessions with customizable notifications.
- Board book viewer offers interactive tools for commenting, drawing, highlighting, digital signing, and searching within the board book.
- Document repository enables drag-and-drop file uploads, bulk file uploads, and document access management, and supports over 50 file formats.
