Most people hate meetings because they waste their time. The majority of meetings don’t stay on track, have the wrong people in the room and only cause more meetings to happen. To make sure that doesn’t happen to one of your meetings, use these guidelines.
- Begin on time, clearly stating the meeting objective. Communicate your intentions to stick to meeting type, time, topic, and agenda.
- Take a few minutes to establish some ground rules for your meeting such as one person talks at a time, off topic discussions will be delegated to a parking lot, respect each others opinion, etc. Solicit ground rules from your meeting participants.
- Review the agenda items and planned times for each item. Adjust if necessary. But remember, changes to the agenda should be consistent with your meeting objective, type, and time limits.
- Use action language if responsibilities are assigned. Capture these on an ‘Action Items’ sheet for distribution with the minutes. Action items should include 1) What will be accomplished, 2) Who will accomplish it, 3) When and how it will be accomplished (time frames and deliverables).
- Document meeting results in full view of all participants. There’s a lot that goes on in meetings. If you capture information on a white board or flip chart paper, it can save you from discussing items that have already been addressed.
- Have a “parking lot” for topics not on the agenda. This will help you keep the meeting on track.
- Close the meeting by clearing out the parking lot, verifying the action items and take five minutes for meeting feedback.
Tools You Can Use
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Special Report: How To Conduct Meetings That Achieve Results
