Make Your Next Meeting More Productive

By R. David Silva

Conduct Effective Meetings

There are basically two types of business meetings: brainstorming sessions and structured get-togethers.  The former has little structure and encourages spontaneity; preplanning is minimized.  The latter, on the other hand, should have a fair amount of structure and preplanning, which are essential for efficient utilization of staff time.  We will dwell only on structured meetings.

Meetings can afford an opportunity for a productive interchange of ideas and status of projects; but many meetings waste considerable time that people could use more productively handling current assignments.  The following suggestions are designed to avoid wasting time and maximizing usable output.  You should:

1.    Insure that there is an agenda and study it carefully before the meeting;
2.    Gather and organize your files and records that will assist in the discussion of agenda items;
3.    Suggest at the meeting that there be a mechanism for insuring that the agenda is adhered to (something like, “processed check” can be invoked when any of the members feel that the discussion has strayed too far from the agenda item);
4.    Be sure that minutes of the meeting are kept and that participants are able to correct them before they are issued to non-participants;
5.    Be sure that all decisions and next steps are reviewed before the meeting is concluded;
6.    If there is to be a follow-up meeting, have everyone check calendars so a date can be selected before the current meeting concludes; and
7.    Finally have someone designated to be in charge of creating an agenda for the next meeting and establish a due date set for the agenda to be disseminated.

While these steps will not necessarily produce the ultimate or perfect outcome, they will impose a discipline on the participants.  There will be a sharper focus on the topics to be discussed and, hopefully, there will be less time spent straying from the subject at hand.

If you have any topics that you wish to be discussed in this column, please contact me via silva@4fashionadvice.com.

How To Plan
and Conduct
Productive Business Meetings

 R. David Silva

Business Editor

Any topics that you wish to be discussed in this column?

silva@4fashionadvice.com