People - Top Tips - Effective meeting management

Effective meeting management

This document is designed as a quick reference guide to Effective Meeting Management.

This will enable you to gain knowledge of a particular skill, task or process in the workplace. This means you can quickly find the key information that you need and refer to it on an ongoing basis whenever you need to refresh your knowledge.

People - Top Tips - Effective meeting management

What you need to know

What you need to know….

How much time do we spend on planning and reviewing meetings? The answer is either too much or too little! Historically organisations have meetings because it has turned habitual. We rarely take a moment to think about the purpose of the meeting or ask ourselves ‘what do we want to achieve from this meeting?’

Planning the meeting

● Determine objectives and agenda and communicate this to attendees in advance of the meeting

● Provide attendees with any information they may need in order to complete their preparation before attending and know what they need to bring with them to the meeting

● Plan content and process

● Determine appropriate players

● Define roles and responsibilities

● Pre-position key contributors

● Arrange logistics

Do the meeting

● Carry out the agenda

● Ensure all resources contribute

● Bring to closure with next steps, accountabilities, and benefits and concerns

Review the meeting

● Debrief immediately

● Publish Benefits, Concerns and Next steps

● Follow-up on next steps

● Incorporate benefits and concerns in next meeting plan

In order to ensure a meeting runs smoothly it may help to bear the following behaviours in mind and adhere to the dos and don’ts:

Meeting behaviours Do’s:

● Headline ideas

● Be positive

● Listen actively

● Establish and observe time contracts

● Paraphrase to confirm what you heard

● “Build” on others’ ideas

● Benefits before concerns… always!

● Phrase problems as “how to” or “I wish”

● Help ideas “over the wall”

● Set up win/win situations

● Stay focused

● Stay “in process”

Meeting behaviours Don’ts:

● Come with a “hidden agenda”

● Have two meetings going on at once

● Ramble

● Lob “grenades” or launch “missiles”

● Look for the “Fatal Flaw”

● Violate time contracts

The next time a meeting takes place in your workplace, observe whether the

PDR process was followed. Look to see if the meeting ran smoothly as expected.