effective meetings tips

The Growth of Meetings
Over the past decade meetings have started to consume an increasing proportion of the working day. This trend seems set to continue, with more and longer meetings occupying the time of senior staff. Despite predictions that the impact of high technology in the workplace would reduce the need for meetings, the reverse is proving to be the case. More than ever before, organizations need staff that posses total meetings skills, including the ability to limit and shape the increasing demand for meetings. Meetings that last too long or that are held too often will be seen for what they are, an expensive liability, wasting the organizations resources and money. This course will help you to develop effective meeting skills, whether you are attending as the chairperson or as a participant. All aspects of meetings are covered in detail, including preparation, communicating effectively and maintaining control throughout the meeting process.

Meetings Should Have Specific Objectives
Meetings often represent the most dramatic and powerful events in the workplace. When a meeting works well the added value can be enormous. However, meetings that give rise to poorly considered decisions and inappropriate follow-up actions will leverage this failure throughout the organization. Each type of meeting should be carefully planned to achieve its specific objective, here are two examples:
1. If the main objective of the meeting is to inform people, then the meeting will usually involve some form of presentation followed by a question and answer session. This type of meeting should focus on the person presenting the information and the opportunity for discussion will often be limited.
2. If the meeting is held to solve a problem or brainstorm new ideas then everyone should be encouraged to participate from the outset. This kind of meeting should be relatively unstructured, and free flowing discussion should be encouraged. This will be helped by selecting an appropriate venue and seating arrangement.

When meetings are successful they achieve a dynamic interchange between the participants in which they can achieve more than they could by working alone - or by communicating by some other means. However, when the outcome is evaluated objectively, many meetings are not successful and often leave the participants feeling that the meeting was a waste of time.

The True Cost of Meetings
Most people will have heard the story of the American corporate president who had the hourly salaries of his senior board members entered into an electronic display, which updated the cost of each meeting as it progressed. The president would periodically turn to the display and ask the meeting participants if they had justified the accumulated cost. No doubt this was an effective way of keeping minds focused, but even that approach seriously underestimates the true cost of a meeting.
However, simple salary based calculations take no account of the other costs associated with a meeting – such as:

Cost of Overruns
Every meeting has associated with it a time and a cost – but how many half hour meetings actually last 30 minutes? Far more overrun than finish early, so even quantifying the time of the meeting isn't that easy.

Preparation & Follow Up
You would normally expect to spend some time ahead of a meeting - preparing for it. You would also spend some time following the meeting in pursuing tasks that have arisen from it. Typically, a meeting could occupy staff for three to five times the scheduled duration of the meeting.

Overhead and Administration costs
This category includes the fixed costs of the meeting venue, whether it is in-house or external, as well as the cost of hiring any presentation equipment that may be required. It will include all of the communication and production costs associated with the meeting - items such as stationery, printing, telecommunications and postage. If the meeting uses videoconferencing, then this can be quite a significant cost.

Travel costs
People often travel quite long distances in order to attend meetings and not only must this cost be factored in, but also an appropriate allowance for any non-productive time.

Opportunity costs
Whilst people are in meetings they are not able to carry out their normal duties. For example, a sales meeting may take a number of key sales staff off the road for a day. Sales opportunities will inevitably be missed and this needs to be considered when estimating the true cost of the meeting?

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