How To Conduct Effective Meetings
Since I transferred office late in 2008, I’ve been to a lot of meetings. Yeah, almost daily! I led some, and I was just a mere participant in many others. There never was a meeting I attended that finished in an hour. Most takes at least two hours, and then some follow up meetings in a week. Even in my twitter, I mentioned meetings many times.
Are meetings really necessary? I say yes. But ineffective meetings are just a waste of time. Here are a few guides on how to conduct effective meetings.
1. Plan Ahead. This includes conceptualizing the agenda and the expected outcome.
2. Inform the participants ahead of time on the agenda and the required presentations
3. Start and end on time
4. Allow participants to discuss and give their thoughts on certain items.
5. Focus on the important and the urgent
6. Make a decision.
7. Make action plans.
8. Provide meals or light snacks. You don’t expect people to absorb long discussions without satisfying their bellies.
There are many things I don’t like in meetings and here are some them:
1. Delayed start
2. Repetitive discussions
3. Indecision of those who are in command.
4. Lack of details.
5. Participants are starved to insanity.
Extended meetings are fine with me as long as we come up with decisions and action plans. What I like with one of my bosses is that he informs us ahead of time what the meeting is all about and we come up with action plans afterwards (See my 1-8 list above). Of course, problems can’t be solved by meetings alone.
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Ceblogger is a CPA trapped in his cubicle while his mind wanders outside watching the world, and exploring possibilities his mind conceived.