Meetings consume a disproportionate amount of every employee’s available work hours and contribute to lost time. Meetings are required but they need to be managed. In most situations too many people are asked to attend, the meetings become a forum for pushing an agenda, and too often the concerns that led to the meeting being called are not resolved. While it is necessary to get people involved, to keep them informed, and also give them an opportunity to provide input, it is also necessary to find ways of satisfying these requirements without excessive waste of time.
As a manager you will probably participate in many meetings regarding your department’s activities and other organizational meetings. While you may not be able to control or shape the organizational meetings, you can design your department’s meetings to be effective and efficient. There are no mysteries to managing meetings. The requirements are simple:
- Define the purpose of the meeting.
- Develop the agenda but leave room for flexibility.
- Identify any specific preparation that participants need. (Don’t keep plowing the same ground over and over.)
- Include only the participants who can contribute or have a need to know.
- Engage in a dialogue rather than discussion.
- Focus on facts and their justification.
- Bring all the critical issues out in the open.
- Make the required decisions based on available resources.
- Prepare a list of action items with assignments and schedule.
- Document the results of the meeting.
- Communicate the results to all who have a need to know.
Recognize the fact that meetings will be called on the spur of the moment without the time to go through this series of formal steps. Although the requirements may not be written down and passed out ahead of the scheduled meeting, following the steps allows for a more disciplined process and reduces the time required for the meeting.