Goal of the meeting

The goal of the status meeting is based upon two factors:

• Meeting frequency

• Attendees

Meeting frequency refers to how often the meeting is conducted. A daily meeting will have a different goal than a weekly meeting. Weekly meetings should be different from monthly meetings, and so on.

The frequency of a meeting is usually driven by the organizational culture. Alexa Von Tobel is the founder and CEO of LearnVest.com, a financial-management and lifestyle website. In an article, she wrote for Inc.com, Von Tobel shares how often LearnVest.com conducts status meetings. "We hold an all-hands meeting every two weeks and I do a 'State of the Union' address to everyone, every three months. That may not work for your start-up, but it's certainly worked for us." In the same article, she points out that it's okay to change how often meetings are held. "Over the years, I found that having meetings once a week was too much—we didn't have enough updates worth stopping the whole team for...