Conducting An Effective Meeting

Posted on June 29th, 2010 by Laurie Simonson
Business Management with 0 comments

If you’re like me, I attend a lot of meetings.  And, if you’re like me, I don’t always look forward to them.  After leaving a meeting the other day, I was puzzled as why this meeting and others are so often ineffective.  After some thought, I realized that not a lot of people have been instructed on how to facilitate an effective meeting.  Many individuals call a meeting, show up with a few topics in mind and hope that all communication barriers are lifted.  Instead, people often leave more confused and frustrated than they were prior to the meeting.  I have been guilty of conducting those ineffective meetings and I have learned that preparation is the key to success.

Here are a few tips I have learned along the way to help meetings become more effective:

1. Do you need a meeting? Perhaps an email, phone call or written document would better communicate your message or meet your goal.
2. Outline the purpose of the meeting.  Outline the goal of the meeting by asking yourself, why you’re holding this meeting, what do you hope to accomplish and/or what do you want people to do when they leave?
3. Prepare an agenda. List out the topics to be covered, who is assigned to cover these topics and time estimates for discussion on each topic.  If the meeting is a follow-up meeting, make sure that your action items from the previous meeting are included on the agenda.
4. Be selective about who’s invited.  Invite individuals who are affected by the topic or who may contribute information.
5. Start and end the meeting on time. Avoid the urge to reiterate what has been discussed for latecomers and be respectful to others schedules by ending on time.
6. Table unplanned topics. Follow the agenda and when the conversation begins to stray, use the agenda to bring the group back on task.
7. Gather ideas in advance for brainstorming meetings. Come prepared to brainstorming meetings with an outline of ideas that were gathered in advance.  If you are unable to do this in advance, provide index cards at the door and have attendees start writing out their ideas.  Collect all cards and make sure all ideas are shared.  Make brainstorming meetings a safe place to share ideas and make sure all ideas are shared.  Make brainstorming meetings a safe place to share ideas by listing them all onto a flipchart.
8. Summarize the meetings. Keep a record of the meeting that includes action items, deadlines, assignments and all decisions that were made.  As the facilitator, you can assign this task to someone at the meeting (it can be effective to give this task to a daydreamer so they pay better attention).

Give these tips a try and see how your next meeting goes.  Time is valuable and proper preparation for meetings can be the key to using this time effectively.

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