Ten Tips for an Effective Meeting
As Captain James T. Kirk once intoned, "A meeting is an event where minutes are taken and hours wasted.” To keep this from happening at your meeting, follow these suggestions from TechRepublic
#1: Know why you called the meeting...Spend five minutes before you send out the meeting invitation to formulate, in 10 words or less, exactly why you need everyone's time...Review the reason an hour later; if it still seems valid, go ahead and send out the invitations...
#2: Know what action you expect from the meeting...Do not squander others' time. Instead, spend a few minutes before the meeting trying to answer the following question: "What do I expect the attendees to DO at the end of this meeting?"...
#3: Never send a meeting to do a conversation's work...
#4: Designate someone you trust to take the minutes...
the minutes become the permanent record of what was agreed to and decided on. Take the minutes and circulate them yourself or have a trusted associate do the honors. Oh, and you do not have to write down everything said at the table. A list of action items and agreed to dates will suffice.
#5: Establish the rules of order...Chaos happens, but you do not have to let it ruin an otherwise-productive meeting.
#6: Start on time, end early...
#7: Maintain focus...
#8: Assign action items at the end...
#9: Verify agreements...Take a minute at the end of the meeting to summarize what you agreed to...This allows you to verify that you properly understood the agreement and that the meeting attendees reached a consensus on the issue...
#10: Follow up..."
Read more in this article by Sharon T. Kalvar.
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