Meeting Management

Elements of Effective Meetings

1. The plan

2. The facilitation/focus

3. The conclusion
The Plan

1. Determine desired outcomes: what are the tangible results that you need to
accomplish by

the end of the meeting. Desired outcomes should be measurable and fit into your overall
group
process.
Examples:
“To determine a strategy to approach our communication problem”
“To establish a timeline for the program.”
“To delegate tasks to each member.”
“To decide on a supply vendor.”

2. Determine the necessary agenda items and arrange the sequence of the agenda items.

A. Break down the outcome statement(s) to determine what activities/discussions need to

take place at the meeting in order to accomplish them. These are your agenda items.
B. Next you need to determine what the best sequence is for the agenda items.
Remember, some may be dependent on the completion of other items.
C. Give careful analysis to how long each agenda item will take.
3. Determine who needs to attend. Make sure the people who are directly involved or
who
have necessary information/skill are in attendance. Do not have people attend who don’t
really need to be present.

4. Decide where and when the meeting will be held. Make sure all necessary people can
attend. Make sure the location is suitable and is reserved if necessary.

5. Determine who will bring necessary pieces of information and/or equipment and who
will lead discussion for each task item. This is a critical step in the planning process. Many
meetings fail because information and other resources that are critical to the task and
outcomes
are not available at the meeting. Determine who is best suited to lead each task area.
6. Distribute agenda to participants in advance. This ensures members can come
prepared to
meeting, assures time and location are communicated, and allows for task items
to be added if
necessary.
The Facilitation:

• Start on time
• Give a quick overview of the desired outcomes.
• Refer to the task items on the agenda and remind members who are leading in each of
those areas to adhere to the time frames.
• Establish a “bin-list” for items or issues brought up that do not coincide with this
meetings objectives but are of relevance to be discussed at a later time.
• Remind members how the process will work.
• Make sure someone is taking notes
• Summarize and establish a delegation worksheet.
• End on time

The Conclusion:

• Summarize what has been accomplished.

• Make sure your outcomes have been met.
• Identify unfinished business and agree upon how to deal with them.
• Determine who will plan and facilitate the next meeting.
• Complete the Delegation Worksheet.
Meeting Agenda
 Establishing Meeting Procedures

Who is responsible for meeting productivity?

The chairperson should be in charge of planning, and he or she may delegate some
duties to other individuals. But everyone who attends the meeting should be prepared to
participate and contribute to the business at hand.
Ideally, a meeting should have a standard scheduled date and starting time. The length of
the meeting may be fixed (that is, have a specified ending time), or it may be determined
by the volume of business to conduct. At its first meeting, the group should decide
whether to set an ending time. It is important that the

leader adhere to these times in subsequent meetings.

One of the most important parts of meeting planning is preparing the agenda. The
agenda is a helpful tool for guiding discussion. (For more information about developing an
agenda

The chairperson may have one or two members summarize the discussion to ensure that
all meeting participants clearly understand the decisions made. When decisions and/or
recommendations have been made, everyone needs to support them. For this reason,
unmistakable
communication is critical. Members not only need to speak clearly, but they also need to be
active listeners.
Repeating or summarizing someone’s contribution can be beneficial to the group’s
efficiency.
 Selecting a Meeting Site

In addition to planning the agenda, the leader should

make sure the meeting site has a favorable environment.
Meeting participants will contribute to and get more
from the meeting if they are comfortable. There are
several factors to consider.
• Remember the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA), and make sure there are no barriers to
discourage or prevent some individuals from
participating. Parking and room location also need
to be considered. If the meeting site is an unfamiliar
location, give directions and parking instructions as
necessary. Moreover, make sure that others at the
location know about the meeting.
• How tables and chairs are arranged can help or
hinder meeting effectiveness. If people can see one
another—in particular, if they can see facial
expressions or body language—they will
communicate more readily and clearly. Once the
meeting has ended, be sure to leave the room and
facilities as they were found.
• The acoustics, lighting, temperature, and noise level
of the room also affect the participants’ comfort.
Furthermore, the meeting room should have
capabilities (such as electrical outlets, projection
screen, and the like) that will allow for operating
any equipment that might be needed.
 The 6 Golden Rules of Meeting Management
Meetings are unpopular because they take up time--usually that of many people.
However, there are good meetings and there are bad meetings. Meetings can be an
excellent use of time when they are well-run. Unfortunately, the converse is also true, and
it seems that time-wasting, poorly run meetings are far too common.
This article describes 6 rules of meeting management that can help make meeting more
productive and less frustrating. Each of the rules requires commitment from all
participants.
Golden Rule #1: Run your meetings as you would have others run the meetings that you
attend.
This is the most fundamental Golden Rule of Meeting Management. Running an effective
meeting--or being a good meeting participant--is all about being considerate of others.
All the other Golden Rules of meeting management flow from this principle.

Golden Rule #2: Be prepared and ensure that all the participants can be as well.
Distribute the meeting agenda a day before the meeting and make sure everyone has
access to any relevant background materials. Participants, of course, have the obligation
of reviewing the agenda and background materials and arriving at the meeting prepared.
If the meeting organizer has not provided information about the objectives of the
meeting, the participants should take the initiative to ask. No one should arrive at a
meeting not knowing why they are there and what is supposed to be accomplished.
Golden Rule #3: Stick to a schedule.
Start the meeting on time and end it on time (or even early). Starting on time requires
discipline by the organizer and the participants. Arriving late shows a lack of
consideration for all those who were on time. But if all participants know that the
organizer is going to start the meeting right on time, there is a much greater likelihood
that everyone else will make the effort to be punctual.

Finishing in a timely manner is also crucial. If everyone agreed that the meeting would
last an hour, the meeting should not run any longer than that. Keeping the agenda realistic
is important, of course. Finally, if only 20 minutes are required to accomplish the meeting
objectives, the meeting should end after only 20 minutes. It would be a waste of
everyone's time to let it go on any longer than that.
The time for which the meeting is scheduled is also important. Scheduling regular
meetings for inconvenient times (e.g. after the end of the official work day) can have a
very negative impact on morale. Emergencies are a reality for most organizations and
may necessitate meetings at odd times, but routine meetings should be scheduled at a
time that is reasonably convenient for the participants.
Golden Rule #4: Stay on topic.
Most groups have at least one person who tends to go off on a tangent or tell stories
during meetings. Whether this is the organizer or one of the participants, all meeting
participants have the responsibility of gently guiding the meeting back to the substantive
agenda items. This should not be done at the expense of all levity, of course, as that is an
important ingredient for esprit de corps. Also, storytelling can be very useful if it is being
used deliberately as a coaching or teaching tool. As a rule, however, someone needs to
guide the discussion back to the agenda if the meeting becomes clearly off track.
Golden Rule #5: Don't hold unnecessary meetings.
Carefully assess how often routine meetings really need to be held. For example, if you
have daily staff meetings, how productive are they? Can they be held less frequently? Or,
perhaps, can they be held standing up someplace and kept to a few minutes? Staff
meetings are crucial vehicles for maintaining good communication in the office, but it is
important to find the right balance between good communication and productive uses of
time.
Golden Rule #6: Wrap up meetings with a clear statement of the next steps and who is to
take them.
If any decisions were made at the meeting (even if the decision was to "study the issue
more") the meeting organizer should clearly summarize what needs to be done and who
is going to do it.

If the organizer fails to do this, one of the participants needs to speak up

and request clarification of the next steps. This is crucial. If the participants leave the
meeting and no one is accountable for taking action on the decisions that were made, then
the meeting will have been a waste of everyone's time.

These simple rules can go a long way in making meetings more productive.
Implementing them is not always easy, as they require preparation and discipline, but
doing so can make a huge difference to the productivity of your organization.
 What Makes a Meeting Work?
There are two important ways to evaluate the success of a
meeting. The first is to review the “what.” What were the results
of the meeting? Did the group accomplish the meeting’s
purpose? What did you get done? The second way is the
“how.”

How was this meeting worthwhile? How were the decisions

made? How did people get along and work to accomplish
the meeting’s purpose? How do people feel about the
time spent working together? How were people encouraged
to be involved and innovative? How long did it take to meet
the meeting’s objectives? How worthwhile was the time? What
contributed to the success of the meeting?
 How to Get Good Results from a Meeting
Have a clearly understood and agreed-upon purpose.
Don’t meet unless you can state the purpose
in a sentence.
Be clear about who should attend the meeting and
how they can benefit from as well as contribute to
the meeting’s goals.

Define roles in writing. Who facilitates? Who

records? Who prepares?

Have an agenda that is available to everyone before

the meeting. Mail or e-mail it with the minutes of the
previous meeting.

Review the agenda at the beginning of the meeting,

and make any changes.
Stick to the agreed-upon time frame. Adjourn early if
you finish early. If your habitually run out of time,
seek agreement to meet longer in future or form subcommittees
empowered to deal with specific issues.

Consider various ways for sharing information during

the meeting: flipcharts, whiteboards, overheads,
computer presentations.

Develop a decision-making process. Voting? Consensus?

Majority rules? When to “sleep on it”? Put
these decisions in your bylaws.
Refocus tangential conversation. Relate the group
process to the purpose.

Define clearly decisions that are made. Establish the

need for follow-up. Promote and expect accountability.
 How to Support the Process of Working Together
Establish criteria for attendance, share them with the group’s members, and put them in
the bylaws.
Communicate clearly and multiple times, if possible, the date, place, time, and purpose of
each meeting.
Plan the meeting’s physical environment. Consider parking, access, room arrangement,

room temperature, noise, lighting, food, etc. Pay attention to special needs (see the

chapters on learning styles and promoting consumers’ involvement).

Acknowledge the value of everyone’s time and effort. Be positive about the meeting’s
purpose. Invite participants to engage themselves fully in the process. Make participants
all knows one other. (Name tags or name tents may
be helpful.)