Does anybody choose meetings?
Meetings - you either enjoy them or dislike them. They seem a fundamental evil to many. Whether board meetings or any other company meetings. If you enquire if they are necessary the response is likely to be, 'certainly'. Are they beneficial - most might say, 'Never'. This attitude would seem to suggest that it's not the purpose but the composition of effective meetings and how they are handled which can really annoy people.
Do you recognize someone that complains about meetings? Finds them a total waste of time? Perhaps, if it is your role to arrange and run a meeting you might even approach this with a level of trepidation and an increase in stress.
Do you have a strategy?
It is unusual for a meeting to have no agenda in the slightest. The initial item on the agenda, particularly the very first in a set of meetings, ought to be an outline of your meeting strategy. This will determine what you hope to achieve from the meeting, how you want to conduct it and your hopes of those at the meeting. Therefore, in summary you may want to address:
Do you have a goal:
What is the objective of the meeting? Clearness here will spare a lot of distress when dealing with the meeting.
How often do you want meetings?
State the frequency of a string of meetings and assess suggestions from individuals attending. Don't forget, meetings use up time.
What is the output?
Define what you hope to be the end products from the meeting. For instance, what will be the structure of the minutes of meetings and any actions that they might include? This is a very good time to prompt people that they will be accountable for actions that they receive. If these are not done in a prompt manner it could impact other people at the meeting.
The chairperson:
Who will it be and how will that individual conduct the meeting? This could well be a Project Manager, but, other people will hold effective meetings beyond official projects.
The secretary:
Who will it be? Don't demand volunteers at the meeting. People don't enjoy being engineered into a job they might not like and may not actually be a good match for it. They may also be proficient at saying, 'no'. Ask an individual to become the secretary ahead of the meeting and describe the responsibilities.
Distribution of the meeting minutes:
This is very crucial. It's often a good strategy for the secretary to distribute a draft copy to those in the meeting and suggest comments on factual matter and the ownership of actions. Give a final date for the suggestions and a final date to complete and circulate the minutes and stick to it.
Control and Management
The principal basis for convening a meeting will be for the control of some aspect of an activity or string of activities. They develop into a forum for bringing up issues, identifying project progression against any plans and the achievement of certain actions. It's a chance for communicating over departments that might not always be attainable.
Ideally, some form of decision making will arise. There will have been triumphs and this gives the chairperson a chance to praise the team and individuals providing motivation.
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