Being able to share your point of view with colleagues and customers is a vital function in any corporate environment. Corporations need to cultivate an environment that allows for enhanced employee collaboration and facilitates interaction and collaborative sharing of information. What better venue is there to air out your opinions than in meetings?
Meetings can either be productive or a total waste of everyone’s time. If nothing gets accomplished in a meeting your company has wasted valuable time, resources, meeting room space, and several man-hours. To ensure this does not happen, here are tips on how to hold productive meetings.
Generate Meeting’s Agenda
Creating the agenda of the meeting and circulating it to the attendees at least 24 hours before the meeting, allows participants to prepare for the meeting. Ensure the agenda are a concise summary; communicating what should be discussed and the expected outcome of the meeting. Write the agenda in question form instead of points to stimulate thinking and creativity amongst the attendees before the start of the meeting.
Creating an agenda for the meeting allows for all participants to be conversant with the required proceeding of the meeting and avoid straying off to irrelevant topics. Despite having an agenda it is possible for a meeting to stray off, the leader must therefore strive to keep the meeting focused on the items listed on the agenda.
Setup the Meeting Room.
It is important to set up the meeting in an area that is most suitable for the kind of meeting you are having. Room booking systems are becoming increasingly popular for their efficiency and ease of use. The system ensures that all the assets from the room to catering services that will be required for the meeting are booked and set up in time.
Everything in the meeting room space should be intentional; from the lighting to the seating arrangement because they have a profound effect on the attendees’ interaction, how they will pay attention, and retain information. It is therefore important to take time in investing in the room design element to be incorporated because of its great influence on the productivity of the meeting.
Set Start and Finish Time
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Start the meeting at random times; usually, people start meeting on the hour, try setting a starting time like 9:08 am which picks attendees attention. This will reduce situations where you sit waiting for late arrivals. Be sure to include gathering time and starting time in the meeting notice. Ensure that the person who will kick off the meeting is aware of his role and is on time.
It is important to set a finish time for the meeting because if people know that a meeting will end on time they are more likely to focus and get the decision made. Finish time guide meetings from running too long, cutting on time allocated for other activities.
Start with Key Topics
When selecting the key topics be sure to include those that impact many attendees and would be of interest to the widest cross-section of the attendees.
Starting with the key topics ensures that the most important topics have been covered before time runs out. During the discussion encourage attendees’ participation, be sure to be supportive and encouraging.
To make the presentations more lively: consider allocating different speakers to address different topics. This way you generate greater interest amongst the audience. Incorporate the use of technology during the presentation to ease connectivity and facilitate interactive meeting environments. LED Videotron, for instance, has gained popularity for its ability to support high-quality display of data and enable meeting participants to view content in stunning detail.
Share a Summary of the Meeting
At the end of the meeting, allow for five minutes of summary sharing of what has been discussed this way you will be sure everyone is aware of their responsibility and provides clarity for what has been agreed upon.
Sharing a summary can also be done in between topics; at the end of a topic pause and agree on specific commitments to be fulfilled within a particular time frame. This way you ensure that everyone is clear on the action points and outcome.
Share Notes and Minutes.
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Ever heard of the Chinese proverb that says, “the palest ink is better than the best memory?” Well then, when attending meetings take notes that capture the key information of the meeting so that it can easily be retrieved later. This can be a powerful way to influence others, inform those who were not able to attend the meeting, and remind others of the agreements they made. Distribute concise notes of the meeting to all relevant people.
The secretary should write and share the proceedings of the meeting within 24 hours with all the relevant people. The point is not to recreate the discussion but to highlight the proceedings and key points.
Conclusion.
Whether you love or hate meetings it’s impossible to eliminate meetings incorporate work setups. Therefore, it is important to make them as useful and productive as possible. In the spirit of efficiency, saving time, and money it is important that you incorporate the above tips when preparing and carrying out your meeting for them to be productive. Good luck.