Sections of this topic
Guidelines to Conducting Effective Meetings
© Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC.
Adapted from the Field Guide to Leadership and Supervision in Business
and Field Guide to Leadership and Supervision for Nonprofit Staff.
Sections of This Topic Include
Selecting Participants
Developing Agendas
Opening the Meeting
Establishing Ground Rules
Time Management in Meetings
Evaluating the Meeting Process
Evaluating the Overall Meeting
Closing the Meeting
Various Types of Groups
Additional Perspectives About Conducting Successful Meetings
Also consider
Related Library Topics
Planning Effective Meetings
Meeting management tends to be a set of skills often overlooked by leaders
and managers. The following information is a rather “Cadillac” version
of meeting management suggestions. The reader might pick which suggestions best
fits the particular culture of their own organization. Keep in mind that meetings
are very expensive activities when one considers the cost of labor for the meeting
and how much can or cannot get done in them. So take meeting management very
seriously.
The process used in a meeting depends on the kind of meeting you plan to have,
e.g., staff meeting, planning meeting, problem solving meeting, etc. However,
there are certain basics that are common to various types of meetings. These
basics are described below.
(Note that there may seem to be a lot of suggestions listed below for something
as apparently simple as having a meeting. However, any important activity would
include a long list of suggestions. The list seems to become much smaller once
you master how to conduct the activity.)
Complete Guides
Basics Guide to Conducting
Effective Meetings
Planning a Great Meeting
Managing Meetings (A guide)
How to Conduct a Meeting
Selecting Participants
· The decision about
who is to attend depends on what you want to accomplish in the
meeting. This may seem too obvious to state, but it’s surprising
how many meetings occur without the right people there.
· Don’t depend on your own judgment about who should come.
Ask several other people for their opinion as well.
· If possible, call each person to tell them about the
meeting, it’s overall purpose and why their attendance is important.
· Follow-up your call with a meeting notice, including
the purpose of the meeting, where it will be held and when, the
list of participants and whom to contact if they have questions.
· Send out a copy of the proposed agenda along with the
meeting notice.
· Have someone designated to record important actions,
assignments and due dates during the meeting. This person should
ensure that this information is distributed to all participants
shortly after the meeting.
Developing Agendas
· Develop the agenda together with key participants in
the meeting. Think of what overall outcome you want from the meeting
and what activities need to occur to reach that outcome. The agenda
should be organized so that these activities are conducted during
the meeting.
In the agenda, state the overall outcome that you want from the
meeting
· Design the agenda so that participants get involved early
by having something for them to do right away and so they come
on time.
· Next to each major topic, include the type of action
needed, the type of output expected (decision, vote, action assigned
to someone), and time estimates for addressing each topic
· Ask participants if they’ll commit to the agenda.
· Keep the agenda posted at all times.
· Don’t overly design meetings; be willing to adapt the
meeting agenda if members are making progress in the planning
process.
· Think about how you label an event, so people come in
with that mindset; it may pay to have a short dialogue around
the label to develop a common mindset among attendees, particularly
if they include representatives from various cultures.
Opening
Meetings
· Always start on time; this respects those who showed
up on time and reminds late-comers that the scheduling is serious.
· Welcome attendees and thank them for their time.
· Review the agenda at the beginning of each meeting, giving
participants a chance to understand all proposed major topics,
change them and accept them.
· Note that a meeting recorder if used will take minutes
and provide them back to each participant shortly after the meeting.
· Model the kind of energy and participant needed by meeting
participants.
· Clarify your role(s) in the meeting.
Establishing
Ground Rules for Meetings
You don’t need to develop new ground rules each time you have a meeting, surely.
However, it pays to have a few basic ground rules that can be used for most
of your meetings. These ground rules cultivate the basic ingredients needed
for a successful meeting.
· Four powerful ground rules are: participate, get focus, maintain momentum
and reach closure. (You may want a ground rule about confidentiality.)
· List your primary ground rules on the agenda.
· If you have new attendees who are not used to your meetings, you might
review each ground rule.
· Keep the ground rules posted at all times.
Time
Management
· One of the most difficult facilitation tasks is time
management — time seems to run out before tasks are completed.
Therefore, the biggest challenge is keeping momentum to keep the
process moving.
· You might ask attendees to help you keep track of the
time.
· If the planned time on the agenda is getting out of hand,
present it to the group and ask for their input as to a resolution.
(Also see Time Management.)
Evaluations
of Meeting Process
· It’s amazing how often people will complain about a meeting being
a complete waste of time — but they only say so after the meeting. Get their
feedback during the meeting when you can improve the meeting process right away.
Evaluating a meeting only at the end of the meeting is usually too late to do
anything about participants’ feedback.
· Every couple of hours, conduct 5-10 minutes “satisfaction checks”.
· In a round-table approach, quickly have each participant indicate how
they think the meeting is going.
Estimate the Cost of a Meeting
Evaluating
the Meeting Process
Evaluating
the Overall Meeting
The
Meeting is Over. Now it’s Time to Evaluate and Improve!
Evaluating
the Overall Meeting
· Leave 5-10 minutes at the end of the meeting to evaluate
the meeting; don’t skip this portion of the meeting.
· Have each member rank the meeting from 1-5, with 5 as
the highest, and have each member explain their ranking
· Have the chief executive rank the meeting last.
Closing
Meetings
· Always end meetings on time and attempt to end on a positive note.
· At the end of a meeting, review actions and assignments, and set the
time for the next meeting and ask each person if they can make it or not (to
get their commitment)
· Clarify that meeting minutes and/or actions will be reported back to
members in at most a week (this helps to keep momentum going).
Various Types of Groups
Action Learning
Committees
Communities of Practice
Conflict
Management
Dialoguing
Facilitation
Focus Groups
Group Coaching
Group Conflict Management
Group Dynamics
(about nature of groups, stages of group development, etc)
Group Learning
Group-Based
Problem Solving and Decision Making
Large-Scale
Interventions
Open Space
Technology
Self-Directed
and Self-Managed Work Teams
Team Building
Training and Development
Virtual Teams
Additional Perspectives About Conducting Successful
Meetings
Managing Meetings
Ten
Reasons Why Meetings Fail
Why Face-to-Face Meetings Make All the Difference
Hold Conversations, Not Meetings
Save a Doomed Meeting
Staff
Meetings: “All for One and One for All!”
Effective
Meetings: The Top Three Challenges
Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to This Topic
In addition to the articles on this current page, also see the following blogs
that have posts related to this topic. Scan down the blog’s page to see various
posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of
the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a post in the blog.
The blog also links to numerous free related resources.
Library’s
Leadership Blog
Library’s
Supervision Blog
Library’s
Team Performance Blog
For the Category of Facilitation and Teams:
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