Lately we have been doing a lot of work within organizations around maximising the effectiveness of meetings.

This is an ‘old’ topic – yet people still regularly feel there are ‘too many meetings’ and that ‘meetings are a waste of time’. Badly facilitated, badly structured meetings are frustrating, ineffective and therefore are a waste of time!

Given how incredibly busy, everyone is in their workplaces now, meetings need to be well thought through to ensure that they are (a) necessary and (b) effective. When we gather a group of people together it costs time and dollars, so they need to be there for an important reason. When appropriate and effective, people actually appreciate a good meeting!

Here are some meeting pointers, that people genuinely find helpful:

• What people call meetings are in fact, often actually briefings. A briefing is where a group of people are brought together to be given information. People often describe these as a ‘waste of time’ – ‘sitting there listening to someone talk at them’. If it is just about disseminating information, ask people how they feel it can best be received.
• Meetings will work best where there are opportunities for people to discuss important issues, and contribute their wisdom and experience. Again, people feel meetings are a waste of time, if the issues are not of significant importance, or that their contribution will not be considered when decisions are made. It is very important that the right people are there, and that the issues are of a level of importance to warrant their contribution.
• For meetings to be effective, they need to be well planned. There needs to be a mechanism for people to contribute to the agenda. Agenda items need to be prioritised with times allocated to each item. Otherwise, agendas are too crowded, and we either go over time, or items fall off the agenda (frustrating those involved in that item).
• Facilitation of meetings needs to be taken seriously. It involves considerable skills. Rotating facilitators is a good idea only as long as people have the skills.
• Meetings go better if they begin with a brief moment of ‘centering’ to allow people to ‘arrive’. This can be followed by a short ‘catch up’ to see how people are. This gets people involved from the word ‘go’, and helps them to be present.
• It is a good habit to end each meeting ON TIME, and with a very brief informal, ‘how did we go evaluation?’ This demonstrates that we take our meetings seriously, and allow the whole group to continuously improve meeting practices.

We hope this checklist helps, and trust that people will appreciate a good meeting!