How to Fix Meetings and Transform Your L&D Content Operations

How often do your meetings end without clear action items? If you're like most L&D leaders, the answer is "too often." When half your team's time gets consumed by unproductive discussions, it creates a cascading effect. Course launches get delayed. Subject matter experts (SMEs) become frustrated. Learning technology investments underperform.

Recent IDIODC guest Mike Simmons, founder of Catalyst A.C.T.S., has developed a framework that transforms meetings from productivity drains into strategic engines. His meeting framework, adapted from Clayton Christensen's 'Jobs to Be Done' methodology — a way to categorize meetings by purpose — isn't theoretical. It's helping enterprise teams achieve measurable results while streamlining learning content workflows.

The Hidden Cost of Broken L&D Meetings

Sound familiar? Calculate your team's lost hours. Organizations waste approximately $399 billion annually on unproductive meetings. For L&D teams, this translates into something more devastating than lost hours — it means stalled content development, disengaged SMEs, and learning initiatives that never reach their intended impact.

Recent research shows employees spend 31 hours per month in meetings. Roughly half that time proves unproductive. Meanwhile, 65% of employees say meetings prevent them from completing their own work or interrupt deep focus. When you're managing instructional designers, content creators, and technical teams across multiple projects, those wasted hours compound quickly.

Why L&D Meetings Fail Differently

Learning and development meetings carry unique operational challenges. Unlike sales or marketing meetings focused on immediate transactions, L&D meetings involve complex stakeholder relationships. They require long development cycles. Teams must translate abstract learning objectives into concrete deliverables.

The specialized nature of L&D work creates distinct meeting failure patterns:

• SME availability becomes a project bottleneck when meetings lack clear objectives. Scheduled 30-minute content reviews turn into recurring delays. Project timelines extend by weeks or months.

• Cross-departmental collaboration between L&D, IT, compliance, and business units stalls in endless discussion loops. Each group operates with different priorities, vocabularies, and success metrics. Without a shared framework for decision-making, progress stops.

• Learning technology implementation projects get derailed when technical capabilities, business requirements, and instructional design needs aren't properly aligned. Major discussions begin without proper groundwork.

• Content quality assurance processes break down when stakeholders enter review meetings without clear evaluation criteria. Systematic improvements based on learning effectiveness data get replaced by subjective debates.

These challenges compound because L&D professionals serve multiple internal customers simultaneously. They manage external vendor relationships, regulatory requirements, and rapidly changing business needs.

To address these failures, start with Mike's "Call Plan" — a tool for pre-meeting clarity.

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Mike's "Call Plan" Framework for L&D Success

Rather than relying on traditional agendas that list topics without purpose, Mike advocates for strategic "call plans." These address the core questions every L&D meeting should answer.

The Four Essential Elements

Before scheduling any meeting, clarify these components:

1. ‍Who's participating? Not just names, but roles and decision-making authority
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2. ‍What are their objectives? Understanding what SMEs, stakeholders, and team members need to accomplish
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3. ‍What are your objectives? Being explicit about L&D goals and success metrics
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4. ‍What are the desired next steps? Using Mike's rule: "Who will do what by when?"

This approach proves especially valuable for L&D operations where multiple stakeholders often have competing priorities.

Real-World Application

Imagine a stalled compliance module review. With a call plan, it turns into targeted feedback — saving weeks. Consider a typical content review meeting. Traditional approach: "Let's review the compliance training module."

Call plan approach:

• Participants: Legal SME (approval authority), instructional designer (content creator), L&D manager (project owner)

• SME objectives: Ensure regulatory accuracy, minimize legal risk

• ID objectives: Gather specific feedback, understand revision scope

• L&D objectives: Maintain project timeline, ensure quality standards

• Next steps: Legal provides written feedback by Friday, ID implements changes by Tuesday, manager schedules final review

Key Insight: As Mike discusses in his podcast episode "Leading Up, Across & Down," cross-functional leadership helps bridge priorities in L&D-IT meetings.

Once meetings are typed, enhance them with tools that fit L&D needs.

The Three Types of L&D Meetings That Actually Work

Mike's adaptation of 'Jobs to Be Done' framework provides a systematic approach to meeting design. It prevents the confusion and scope creep (when discussions expand beyond the original plan) that plague most L&D discussions. By categorizing every productive meeting into three distinct types, teams maintain focus and achieve concrete outcomes.

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Key Insight: Don't mix meeting types. Never turn a decision-making session into a brainstorm mid-meeting.

Type 1: Information + Q&A Sessions

Purpose: Share updates and gather feedback
L&D Examples: New platform rollout announcements, compliance requirement updates, learning analytics presentations

Information meetings serve a crucial role when they include structured feedback opportunities. These sessions work best for introducing new policies, sharing performance data, or explaining changes to existing processes. Stakeholder input can shape implementation.

Key insight: If you're just delivering information without expecting questions, use email or recorded video instead. The meeting value comes from the interactive element.

Type 2: Decision-Making Meetings

Purpose: Make specific choices with clear criteria
L&D Examples: Vendor selection, budget approval, content strategy direction

Critical requirements:

• Define the exact decision before the meeting

• Establish decision-making criteria upfront

• Ensure decision-makers are present

• Avoid turning this into problem-solving or brainstorming

Decision-making meetings become essential when L&D teams need to choose between competing options under time constraints. These work particularly well for technology selections, curriculum approvals, and resource allocation discussions. Delay costs more than imperfect information.

Type 3: Collaborative Work Sessions

Purpose: Solve problems, design processes, or align on strategy
L&D Examples: Curriculum design workshops, cross-team process mapping, learning pathway planning

Success factors:

• Clear desired outcome defined in advance

• Right mix of expertise in the room

• Structured approach to collaboration

• Concrete next steps assigned

Collaborative meetings often produce the most value for L&D teams. They require the most careful design. These sessions generate creative solutions and build stakeholder buy-in when properly facilitated. But they consume the most time and energy when they lack structure.

Ready to measure success? Here's your implementation guide.

Quick Implementation Guide for L&D Leaders

Why fix this? Better meetings mean 20% faster content delivery. Transforming meeting culture requires systematic change management rather than hoping individual motivation will drive improvement. Most successful meeting transformations start with small pilots that demonstrate value before scaling.

Start Today

1. ‍Audit your calendar: Review last week's meetings. How many had clear objectives shared in advance?
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2. ‍Template creation: Build call plan templates for common L&D meeting types
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3. ‍Team training: Share Mike's three meeting types with your team
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4. ‍Meeting hygiene: Establish "no agenda, no meeting" and "end with next steps" policies

Build Momentum

• Experiment with meeting-free blocks for content creation work

• Use the parking lot technique for scope creep during collaborative sessions

• Implement feedback loops to continuously improve meeting effectiveness

• Try time-boxing: Limit SME reviews to 15 minutes per module section to protect deep work time

Implementation success depends on consistent application rather than perfect execution. Teams that focus on incremental improvement while maintaining accountability typically see results within 4-6 weeks.

Enhancing L&D Meetings with Strategic Tools

Modern meeting tools offer L&D professionals unprecedented opportunities to improve collaboration quality and documentation accuracy. However, technology alone won't fix broken meeting practices — it amplifies existing patterns, whether productive or problematic. The key is selecting tools that support your specific meeting type and team dynamics.

Digital Facilitation for Content Teams

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Remote and hybrid L&D teams need intentional approaches to maintain engagement:

• Visual collaboration tools like Miro help distributed teams work through complex instructional design challenges

• AI-powered transcription from tools like Notta.ai ensures nothing gets lost between stakeholders who speak different "languages" (technical, pedagogical, business)

• Real-time documentation using color-coded systems (red for action items, blue for parking lot items, black for notes)

Meeting Technology That Serves L&D

Mike's advice from "2025 Kickoff" emphasizes simple systems to avoid overcomplication in L&D workflows:

• Integration with project management systems to automatically update task assignments

• Calendar blocking to protect deep work time for content creation

• Automated follow-up that connects meeting outcomes to learning management systems

These technological solutions work best when they support existing workflows rather than requiring teams to adopt entirely new processes. The goal is reducing administrative overhead while improving accountability and documentation.

Building Accountability and Quality Through Structured Meetings

Effective accountability in L&D meetings requires more than good intentions — it demands systematic approaches that connect individual actions to broader project outcomes. Most content production delays stem from unclear ownership and unrealistic timelines rather than lack of effort from team members.

Building on the Call Plan's Next Steps Rule

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Mike's accountability approach becomes crucial for L&D teams managing multiple projects simultaneously:

• Specificity prevents scope creep: Instead of "revise the module," specify "update quiz questions 3-7 based on SME feedback"

• Timeline clarity: Not "soon" but "by Thursday 3 PM for Friday review"

• Ownership assignment: Named individuals, not teams or departments

Structured Review Processes

Transform subjective content reviews into systematic quality assessments:

• Pre-meeting preparation: Reviewers receive specific evaluation criteria

• Focused feedback sessions: Time-boxed discussions on defined elements

• Decision documentation: Clear revision requirements and approval processes

Example: In a compliance training project, unclear meetings led to 2-week delays — fixed with call plans for targeted feedback.

Creating Space for Deep Work

L&D professionals need uninterrupted time for:

• Instructional design and storyboarding

• Content creation and multimedia development

• Learning data analysis and reporting

• Strategic planning and curriculum mapping

Effective meeting practices protect this valuable focused time by eliminating unnecessary interruptions. When meetings consistently produce clear outcomes, team members can dedicate longer blocks to creative and analytical work.

Measuring ROI from Improved Meeting Culture

Demonstrating the business value of better meeting practices requires tracking specific metrics that connect to L&D operational outcomes. Unlike other business functions where meeting ROI might focus on deal closure or customer satisfaction, L&D teams need measurements that reflect content production efficiency and stakeholder engagement quality.

Key Metrics to Track

Business Impact Indicators

Connect better meetings to business outcomes:

• Faster response to training requests from business units

• Improved SME engagement and availability

• Reduced rework and revision cycles

• Higher completion rates for deployed learning content

These measurements help L&D leaders justify process improvement investments. They demonstrate their team's operational maturity to executive stakeholders. The goal is to show how meeting discipline translates into business value through faster, higher-quality content delivery.

From Meeting Chaos to Strategic Advantage

Mike Simmons' framework offers L&D professionals a practical path from meeting overload to operational excellence. By applying structured communication principles, teams can eliminate wasted time while improving content quality and stakeholder relationships.

The goal isn't perfect meetings — it's creating communication systems that serve your learning objectives rather than derailing them. When meetings become tools for clarity and progress rather than obligations to endure, your entire L&D operation benefits.

Start with one meeting type. Apply the call plan framework. Measure the difference. Your content pipeline — and your team — will thank you.

Ready to transform your L&D meetings? Test one call plan this week — share results with Mike on LinkedIn or explore more practical frameworks at Find My Catalyst. For additional insights on optimizing learning content operations, visit dominKnow's blog.