Holding Effective Meetings

For many people, meetings are a source of great irritation. The irritation is not baseless: meeting times run over; there is not enough time to address all the agenda items; people take over conversations, and discussion items exclude most participants. With a little planning you can make meetings more practical, engaging, and even fun.

Guidelines for Excellent Meetings

The following are characteristics for effective meetings.

1. Only hold a meeting if necessary. Meetings are a commitment of time and energy. Make sure that you need to meet. The discussion items must be relevant and urgent and need your team’s participation. Do not have a meeting if a simple telephone call or e-mail among a few team members would achieve the same results.
   
   
2. Have an idea what you want to achieve. Before you set the agenda, be sure you can answer the following questions. Why are we meeting? What do you want to have at the end of the meeting?
   
   
3. Create an agenda. Agendas are great tools for managing a meeting. Your agenda should include:
   • Purpose (see above)
   • Desired Results (see above)
   • Topics for discussion
   • Time estimates for each topic
   • Presenter or discussion leader for each topic
   • Preparation instructions. Be sure to suggest what you want people to do to prepare for the meeting. Examples include: reading the minutes from the last meeting; prepare to speak about progress made on your assignments, and so forth.
     
     Use the following for more complex meetings:
     
     
   • Methods for each topic, such as “Round-Robin,” “Discussion,” and “Report.”
   • Outcomes for each topic, such as “Review progress,” or “Identify next steps.”
     
     

4. Send meeting information before the meeting. Try to give everyone attending as much notice as possible. Include in your meeting announcement the following:
   • Meeting title
   • Date, time, and location
   • Purpose and desired results
   • Preparation instructions
   • Background information
   • Agenda
     
     

5. Start on time. Start your meetings on time to stay on course and finish on time. Do not penalize those who are prompt by delaying the start of the meeting. Recognize and welcome people arriving late but resist stopping the meeting to catch them up (unless it is essential).
   
   
6. Manage time and discussions. Keep the meeting and the attendees on track. You may want to assign or invite someone to keep track of time and let everyone know when the time estimate for a topic is almost over.
   • Stick to the agenda order and time estimates
   • Keep everyone focused
   • Draw rambling or tangent conversation to a close
   • Encourage discussion with lead-in questions
     
     

7. Take notes. It is important that you record the decisions and action items of your meeting. You may want to assign or invite someone to take notes. Rarely will you need to record the exact conversation. Share the notes within one or two business days.
   
   
8. Assign action items. It is important that all action items are clearly written, assigned to someone to follow up, and have an expected completion date.
   
   
9. Have a little fun! No one said that meetings had to be boring. You can add some fun by having a “warm-up” to foster team building and community. Keep in mind the skills and physical abilities of your team members when selecting a warm-up.
   
   
10. Evaluate the meeting. How effective are your meetings? For the first few meetings ask team members to evaluate your meeting. If you introduce new ways of working together get feedback on how effective is was. Use this information to improve your next meeting.
    
    
11. Set expectations. The first time your team meets set expectations about attending meetings. These include:
    • Arriving on time
    • Coming prepared
    • Being polite, respectful, and positive

References

This article was written with the help of the following resources:

• “Ideas, Warmups, Energizers, & Deinhibitizers,” Wilderdom, a project of natural living & transformation, http://wilderdom.com/games.
  
  
• “Meeting Basics, Meetings 101,” EffectiveMeetings.com, Your Meeting Resource Center, http://www.effectivemeetings.com/meetingbasics/training.asp.
  
  
• Scholtes, Peter R, Joiner, Brian L., and Streibel, Barbara J. The Team Handbook, 3rd ed. (Madison, WI: Oriel Incorporated, 2003), chap. 3. http://www.teamhandbook.com

See Also

• Telephone and Web Conferences

Templates

Click here to access any of the following templates:

• Meeting Agenda
• Meeting Minutes
• Meeting Evaluation