Effective Meeting Tips

Unfortunately this article missed July's Edition of ITWorx Insite Magazine, so I thought I would share it anyways, as I put alot of effort bringing this info together.

Introduction

According to a white paper published in 1998, approximately 11 million meetings occur in the U.S. each and every day. Most professionals attend a total of 61.8 meetings per month and research indicates that over 50 percent of this meeting time is wasted*. Imagine how effective meetings could – not only save precious time but – increase productivity. While some of us never learned how to plan for an effective meeting, but many of us have unconsciously learned the secrets of an effective meeting throughout their experience. Please allow me to share with you what I learned from my wonderful colleagues, managers and clients, as well as a number of research material I prepared for this article.

Agenda

The article consists of thirteen carefully selected tips for highly effective meetings.
The tips are categorized in 3 areas:
Planning the meeting.
Conducting the meeting
Following up the meeting.

Plan for the meeting

Tip #1: To meet or not to meet that is the question.

• I consider this tip the most important of all. Imagine the time you may save if you can reach your objective without having a meeting. Can it be covered by an E-mail or a phone call? There is no clear objective for the meeting? Call it off.
• On the other hand, if there is a number of E-mails or Phone Calls going back and forth on the same subject without a resolution, if a topic needs the participation of two or more people to discuss, if a problem requires attention and quick actions to resolve, these are all alerts that you should plan for a meeting.

Only hold a meeting if necessary.

Tip #2: Set Objectives for the meeting.

• Now that you have a clear Goal for your meeting, start identifying your Meeting Objectives, break them down in clear topics to discuss in your meeting.
• Prioritize the meeting topics, and define the time you need to tackle each one of them. Make sure that by discussing these topics, you will reach your Goal(s) by the end of the meeting.

The more concrete your meeting objectives, the more focused your agenda will be.

Tip #3: Define Participants and their roles.

• Now that you defined concrete topics for your meeting's Agenda, it's time now to identify all active participants for each of these topics and make sure that each participant understands his role in the meeting.
• Make sure that the people you've chosen to serve as Facilitator, Time Keeper, and Note-Taker understand the responsibilities of the assigned roles and are able to assume them.

Invite only those people necessary to achieve the goal(s) of the meeting.

Tip #4: Assign Meeting Preparation.

• Most meetings would require some sort of preparation, whether it's a set of alternative solutions for a certain problem, statistics, presentations, Investigations, reading some documents, alternative plans and delivery dates for a project.
• Unless the meeting is a pure brainstorming session, the meeting should focus on presenting and discussing alternative solutions rather than developing them during the meeting, whenever possible.
• It is also important to distribute any prepared material before the meeting in order to give the other participants enough time to read and understand and have them prepared to discuss in the meeting right away. This should ultimately save meeting's time.
• As a meeting organizer, it is your responsibility to assign or request any possible meeting preparation required prior to the meeting.
• If you think some material wouldn’t be ready for the meeting, consider rescheduling the meeting, as the missing material might be necessary to achieve the meeting's Goal(s)

Tip #5: Allocate Time and Space.

• Make sure to make Meeting Room reservation when necessary.
• Make sure the room space will fit all participants and will have all required facilities such as projector, whiteboard, PC, Conferencing Set, Network, etc…
• Do not hesitate to set the meeting time to 45 minutes when you know you don’t need a full hour to go over your meeting agenda.
• Suggest a convenient meeting time and place for all participants. Avoid Lunch hour, non business hours, and consider time zone differences.
• Ensure the availability of all participants before sending out the meeting request and respect their possible time constraints.

Tip #6: Provide an Agenda/Material Beforehand.

• Distribute the meeting Agenda and Materials to all participants early before the meeting.
• The Agenda should include:
  o Meeting Goals and Objectives.
  o Meeting Topics, in order of priority.
  o Meeting Material prepared by different participants.
  o Meeting Time and Location.
  o Meeting Participants and their roles.

Think of the Agenda as a project plan for your meeting.

Conduct the Meeting

Tip #7: Start/Stop Meeting on Time.

• Always start the Meeting on time, to show respect for all participants who arrive on time. Remember that time wasted at meetings is multiplied by the number of participants engaged in the meeting.
• Avoid repeating topics for participants who show up late in the meeting. You may brief them though on the conclusions of the previously discussed topics.
• If the meeting is completed before the time allocated for it, do not hesitate to end it.
• If the allocated meeting time is over and you are not done with the items on your agenda, suggest to the participants either to extend the meeting time if possible, or suggest another meeting time to resume the discussion.

Tip #8: Lead the Meeting – Facilitator Role.

The Facilitator is the meeting's leader, and he's responsible for the following:

• Covering each agenda item in order.
• Encourage full participation by all members.
• Bring each discussion to a closure with a clear conclusion, or action that everyone agrees to and understands.
• Conclude the meeting.

Tip #9: Manage Meeting Time – Time Keeper Role.

• The Time Keeper helps the meeting group keep on track with the timing of the agenda. The facilitator can assume the Time Keeper Role.
• When the time allocated for a certain topic is about to finish or the group deviates from the Meeting's agenda, the Time Keeper should warn the group or the facilitator. This helps keep the meeting achieve its goals within the allocated time.

Tip #10: Record Meeting Notes – Note Taker Role.

• Note Taker is a person who captures and records the basics of the meeting for a permanent record as well as ensure the distribution of the meeting minutes.
• Notes should focus on:
  o Decisions
  o Action Items: things that people will do.
  o Open Issues: things to be considered later.
  o Key Discussion points.
• As well as include:
  o Date, time, and location of the meeting.
  o List of Participants, their roles, and presence/absence.
  o Agenda.

Tip #11: Conclude the meeting.

• End the meeting on time, even if it starts late.
• Summarize the Main points, Decisions, Actions, and Assignments.
• Sketch the Agenda for the Next Meeting – if any.
• Express Appreciation. Thank any participants who made preparations or had active roles during the meeting. Thank anyone assigned a task, as well as the rest of the participants.
• Evaluate the meeting. Ask participants to evaluate the meeting. This is a key to an ongoing improvement of your meetings to make them more effective.

Follow up the meeting

Tip #12: Distribute the meeting's minutes.

• Send Meeting Notes shortly after the meeting, no later than 24 hours.
• Make sure that Meeting Notes are well documented, archived, and distributed to all participants and any other interested parties.

Tip #13: Follow up on actions.

• Keep following up on Meeting's action items, in order to support your meeting's Goals.
• Keep all stakeholders informed of progress on the action items. When you get the final results, get a summary report out to all stakeholders.

References

• * http://www.effectivemeetings.com/
• 'The Manager's Guide to Effective Meetings' by Barbara J Streibel.