How to Run a Weekly Growth Meeting That Gets Results
Why Focus on Weekly Growth Meetings? The weekly growth meeting can be your most valuable recurring team interaction, but it needs to have a high return on investment (ROI). For a team of five, an hour-long weekly meeting costs about $13K per year—and that doesn’t include the opportunity cost. A well-structured meeting can eliminate the need for multiple other meetings and enhance your team's impact.
Key Focus: Impact and Learnings, Not the What
Most meetings get bogged down in discussing the "what"—like what experiments ran last week. To avoid this, use tools like a public experiment pipeline and Slack notifications so the team comes prepared knowing the updates. Instead, focus on impact and learnings in your meetings. This helps the team attach to the highest-impact initiatives and avoid knowledge silos.
How to Execute the Weekly Meeting
Pre-Meeting:
— Friday: An automated email goes out reminding the team to contribute learnings to the weekly meeting document.
— Friday to Monday: Team members contribute their learnings.
— Monday Morning: Team reviews the experiment pipeline and key metrics.
— Pre-Meeting: The meeting owner reviews and edits the document to ensure everything is aligned.
During the Meeting:
— First 40 minutes: Focus on reviewing and questioning learnings.
— Last 5–10 minutes: Review any key metrics and resolve questions.
Meeting Format:
Encourage team members to ask three critical questions:
— Is this a valid learning? – Validate the analysis to prevent false conclusions.
— What else might this tell us? – Extract deeper insights from the data.
— How can we apply this learning? – Identify where else this learning can be applied across the product or processes.
Traps to Avoid:
— Debating Priorities: Save priority debates for after the meeting, using criteria like probability, expected impact, and resources.
— Discouraging Failure: Encourage open discussion of wrong or incomplete analyses without discouraging people from sharing.
— Long Stories: Keep discussions concise, as the meeting should last no longer than an hour.
Additional Tips for a Successful Growth Meeting:
— Assign an Owner: The meeting owner is responsible for facilitating, moderating, and keeping the meeting on track.
— Keep a Cadence: Establish a regular schedule and automate reminders to maintain consistency.
— Address Bad Behaviors Quickly: Provide 1-on-1 feedback to correct distractions or unproductive behaviors early on.
— Celebrate Wins: Highlight and celebrate impactful learnings to motivate the team.
As the Team Grows:
Larger teams may need to break into smaller sub-teams for their own growth meetings (e.g., Paid Acquisition, Product Growth). After these, the entire team can come together for a brief session to share the most important cross-team learnings.
By focusing on the right areas and applying a disciplined approach to your weekly growth meeting, you'll set the foundation for consistent, high-impact results across your team.
Why Focus on Weekly Growth Meetings? The weekly growth meeting can be your most valuable recurring team interaction, but it needs to have a high return on investment (ROI). For a team of five, an hour-long weekly meeting costs about $13K per year—and that doesn’t include the opportunity cost. A well-structured meeting can eliminate the need for multiple other meetings and enhance your team's impact.
Key Focus: Impact and Learnings, Not the What
Most meetings get bogged down in discussing the "what"—like what experiments ran last week. To avoid this, use tools like a public experiment pipeline and Slack notifications so the team comes prepared knowing the updates. Instead, focus on impact and learnings in your meetings. This helps the team attach to the highest-impact initiatives and avoid knowledge silos.
How to Execute the Weekly Meeting
Pre-Meeting:
— Friday: An automated email goes out reminding the team to contribute learnings to the weekly meeting document.
— Friday to Monday: Team members contribute their learnings.
— Monday Morning: Team reviews the experiment pipeline and key metrics.
— Pre-Meeting: The meeting owner reviews and edits the document to ensure everything is aligned.
During the Meeting:
— First 40 minutes: Focus on reviewing and questioning learnings.
— Last 5–10 minutes: Review any key metrics and resolve questions.
Meeting Format:
Encourage team members to ask three critical questions:
— Is this a valid learning? – Validate the analysis to prevent false conclusions.
— What else might this tell us? – Extract deeper insights from the data.
— How can we apply this learning? – Identify where else this learning can be applied across the product or processes.
Traps to Avoid:
— Debating Priorities: Save priority debates for after the meeting, using criteria like probability, expected impact, and resources.
— Discouraging Failure: Encourage open discussion of wrong or incomplete analyses without discouraging people from sharing.
— Long Stories: Keep discussions concise, as the meeting should last no longer than an hour.
Additional Tips for a Successful Growth Meeting:
— Assign an Owner: The meeting owner is responsible for facilitating, moderating, and keeping the meeting on track.
— Keep a Cadence: Establish a regular schedule and automate reminders to maintain consistency.
— Address Bad Behaviors Quickly: Provide 1-on-1 feedback to correct distractions or unproductive behaviors early on.
— Celebrate Wins: Highlight and celebrate impactful learnings to motivate the team.
As the Team Grows:
Larger teams may need to break into smaller sub-teams for their own growth meetings (e.g., Paid Acquisition, Product Growth). After these, the entire team can come together for a brief session to share the most important cross-team learnings.
By focusing on the right areas and applying a disciplined approach to your weekly growth meeting, you'll set the foundation for consistent, high-impact results across your team.