Quick Quiz - How Effective Are Your Meetings?

We have all heard people complain about meetings which are a waste of our time and the truth of the matter is that so many are exactly that. We've also seen the "corridor" meeting that takes place afterwards where it seems the real decisions are taken, or even worse, where the agreed decisions are overturned.

You'll get your chance at some point in your career to run your own meeting - is yours going to go the same way? or will you make sure it's effective and does the job it is supposed to?

Well run meetings contribute to team building and high morale; badly run meetings are at best a waste of everyone's time and at worst potentially damaging to relationships and the business as a whole.

You can learn to run successful meetings; where decisions are taken and acted upon, where people are behind the decisions taken and where the time spent is time well spent.

Here's how you can get it right:

All successful meetings depend upon a number of independent factors and if you approach each one methodically you'll find that your meetings are the ones that get action.

1 Planning

5 Records & action

1 Planning

• What is the meeting intended to achieve?
• What will the meeting actually achieve?
• What happens if you don't hold the meeting?
• Who needs to attend and why?
• Is there a more effective way of communicating?

2 Preparation

• Invite specific agenda items from contributors before the meeting;
• Prepare and circulate an agenda in advance to all who need to attend;
• Arrange agenda logically to avoid the temptation to "jump around";
• Consider the important - v - the urgent issue;
• Arrange the timings and set limits - as chairman you must use your guillotine if necessary;

Clarify objectives for each item.

3 Information

• Tell those involved what's expected of them;
• Tell everyone time, date, location and have them confirm their attendance;
• Circulate any required pre-reading or information.

4 Structure & Control

• Discuss each item in turn as they appear on the agenda, sticking to the order;
• Seek contributions but keep people to the point;
• Avoid going over old ground;
• Be aware of the needs of the group;
• Prevent splinter discussion groups;
• Summarise often to bring back to the point and stay on track;
• Commend contributions and thank contributors;
• Confirm any conclusions;
• Stress the agreed actions, their importance, who takes the action and reporting back requirements.

5 Records & Action

• Record discussions, actions and responsibilities carefully and in detail;
• Produce clear simple minutes immediately.

• Invite the right people;
• Set an agenda that's do-able;
• Control timings and people;
• Encourage members to listen to each other;
• Note actions;
• Review and record.

So the key steps to running successful meetings which avoid the "let's all turn up and see what happens" approach it just means you need to take the time to think through to what you really want and need to achieve, and then get on with it.

People will thank you for not wasting their, or your, time.

Peter Fisher is a Director of Career Consulting Limited and provides pragmatic career advice at all levels. Visit http://www.your-career-change.com/index.html for help with career change issues from self-marketing to CV writing and Interview techniques.