Growth meetings are essential for any team that wants to align, make data-driven decisions, and drive growth. But what exactly are growth meetings, and how do you run successful ones? This complete guide will teach you everything you need to know.
What Are Growth Meetings?
Growth meetings are regular recurring meetings focused specifically on driving growth for a product, team, or company. They bring together stakeholders from across the organization to discuss growth objectives, analyze data and metrics, brainstorm ideas, and make decisions.
The purpose of growth meetings is to create alignment on growth goals, understand what's working and not working, iterate on growth strategies, and ensure the team is making consistent progress. They provide a forum for analyzing data, sharing insights, evaluating experiments, and deciding on next steps to accelerate growth.
Well-run growth meetings help organizations adopt a growth mindset, where everyone is focused on growth and working collaboratively to drive results. They ensure growth remains a priority on a regular basis, not just a one-off exercise.
Why Are Growth Meetings Important?
There are several key reasons why consistent growth meetings are so critical:
Alignment
Growth meetings help align all stakeholders on growth objectives and strategies. This prevents siloed efforts where people are working towards different goals. Discussing metrics and results maintains transparency and understanding of what success looks like.
Data-driven decisions
By regularly analyzing and discussing metrics, growth meetings enable data-driven decision making. Teams can evaluate experiments and initiatives objectively, decide what's working based on data, and double down on successful strategies.
Accountability
Weekly or bi-weekly meetings focused on growth metrics provide accountability for the team. They motivate people to make progress on growth initiatives knowing they'll have to report back regularly.
Compounding growth
Rather than treating growth as a one-time initiative, recurring meetings turn growth into an always-on mindset. They compound growth efforts week after week which stacks up over time into significant results.
Collaboration
Growth meetings foster collaboration by bringing together people from across functions and departments. This ensures different perspectives are heard, creativity is sparked, and the best ideas can bubble up.
How to Structure a Growth Meeting
To maximize their effectiveness, growth meetings should follow a consistent structure and cadence. Here are some best practices for structuring productive growth meetings:
Set a regular cadence
The most successful growth teams hold meetings weekly or bi-weekly. Consistency is key - don't let too much time lapse between meetings. Weekly is best for higher velocity teams.
Limit to an hour
With cross-functional participation, it's essential to keep meetings tightly timed. Limit them to an hour max so the meeting stays focused and on track.
Send out the agenda beforehand
Send the agenda with any data reports or documents one day in advance so everyone comes prepared.
Start with goal review
Kick off each meeting with a quick review of growth goals and any key results you're tracking. This levels everyone on what success looks like.
Analyze metrics and trends
Look at the latest data on your key metrics and growth drivers. Call out any positive or negative trends, and quantify the impact.
Discuss experiments and initiatives
Provide updates on any growth experiments, campaigns, or new initiatives underway. Share results and learnings.
Brainstorm new ideas
Use part of the meeting to brainstorm new growth ideas. Collaborative ideation ensures you keep piping up the funnel.
Make decisions and assign action items
Based on the discussion and data review, make decisions on next steps. Clearly assign owners and deadlines for any action items.
Close with recap and open discussion
Quickly recap all decisions, actions, and next steps. Leave time for any open discussion.
Tips for Running Successful Growth Meetings
Following best practices in facilitating and participating in growth meetings will lead to more productive, engaging sessions with real impact. Here are some top tips:
Choose the right attendees
Limit attendance to those directly responsible for some aspect of growth. This may include product, engineering, design, marketing, sales, and management.
Make the lead facilitator data-driven
The person running the meeting should have a very data-driven mindset to keep the discussion focused on metrics, not opinions.
Level-set definitions in advance
Make sure everyone has the same definitions for key metrics and growth terminology so conversations are aligned.
Require preparation
Ask that everyone come ready to discuss the data, share updates, and pitch ideas. Lack of preparation wastes time.
Alternate presenting
Don't make just one person present each week. Alternate reporters so that everyone gets practice sharing data and updates.
Timebox topic discussions
Use a timer to keep the meeting moving. Don't spend the entire hour reviewing just one metric - timebox each agenda item.
Ban distractions and multitasking
Laptops closed, phones on silent - avoid distractions! Give your full attention so you can engage and contribute.
Visually display data
Show metrics visually on a screen rather than just discussing the numbers. Charts make trends more digestible.
Capture follow-ups and action items
Designate someone to take meticulous notes on decisions made, follow-ups needed, and action items.
Encourage constructive debates
Healthy, data-driven debate leads to better ideas. The facilitator should encourage constructive challenging of assumptions.
Review actions and metrics next week
Start each meeting by reviewing action item completion and metrics since last week. This creates accountability.
Using Supernormal to Optimize Growth Meetings
Taking comprehensive notes during growth meetings can be challenging. It's hard to fully participate in the discussion while also capturing everything meticulously.
Supernormal's AI meeting assistant solves this problem by providing automated, searchable notes for every meeting. Here's how it optimizes growth meetings:
1. Everyone can stay present
With Supernormal capturing notes, participants can be fully present during growth meetings. They can focus on the discussion without worrying about missing or forgetting anything important that's said.
2. Meticulous records of everything
Supernormal uses automated speech recognition to transcribe the entire growth meeting conversation with up to 99% accuracy. Every data point, decision, and action item gets documented.
3. Searchable transcripts and insights
The Supernormal meeting notes are stored in the cloud and fully searchable. You can easily pull up any past discussion by searching for keywords or data references.
4. Share notes instantly
After the meeting, Supernormal shares automated notes with attendees and non-attendees alike so everyone stays aligned. No more waiting for someone to type up notes.
5. Integrate with other tools
Supernormal integrates with tools like Slack, Notion, Google Docs, and more to centralize meeting notes with the rest of your tech stack.
Running successful growth meetings takes preparation, consistency, and discipline. Following best practices for structuring the agenda, facilitating engaging discussions, and leveraging technology like Supernormal to capture notes will set your team up for impactful, data-driven meetings that yield real results. Just be sure to avoid common growth meeting mistakes like lack of preparation, poor follow-through, and no real accountability. Stick with the proven framework and tips above to level-up your growth meetings.