Making Meetings More Effective

Many years ago I watched a great Video Arts production called ‘Meetings Bloody Meetings’. It starred John Cleese who took a satirical look at the creation of meetings and how to get the most out of them. It was fun to watch and it prompted me to think of not just how much time I wasted in meetings and also and more importantly how much of others people’s time I had wasted by not planning, preparing and chairing the meetings I was responsible for. In my view the key to a successful meeting is in its preparation, and over the years I have used the following checklist to help me prepare. 1) Is the purpose of the meeting clear? For example is it to gain consensus on an issue, to make a decision or is for information sharing? This is an important point because I use it as a challenge, do I really need a meeting or can the purpose be achieved in another way. For example if it is for information sharing can the information be disseminated via email? 2) Related to the first point what are the specific outcomes of the meeting? In other words what do you want the meeting to achieve? 3) Who needs to attend and do any of the participants need to have specific roles during the meeting? 4) What decision making processes are needed? For example, will it be the group leader who makes the decision, via a majority vote, consensus or some other process? 5) Where will the meeting be held and has the availability of the space/venue been confirmed as well as the availability of any equipment needed? 6) Does everyone know when and where the meeting will be held? 7) Has a preliminary agenda with purpose and outcomes clearly stated been prepared and sent out to key participants and other stakeholders to sound them out in advance? 8) Following 7) above has the agenda been finalised and distributed it to all participants? 9) What information (e.g. reports) need to be sent out to the participants in advance to allow them to prepare and has this been done? 10) Have you prepared yourself and all necessary materials? Clearly the above doesn’t address all aspects of making a meeting effective as it doesn’t cover actually chairing and facilitating the meeting. However, my personal experience is that the better prepared you are the more likely you are to have a successful meeting – or as the Army’s mantra states, follow the 4 P’s, Preparation and Planning Prevents Poor Performance!