Meetings can be either a useful medium of communication, where relationships and understandings can be strengthened or a drag on time and costs. The following tips may be helpful in ensuring meetings remain relevant and useful.
- Agenda
Break the meeting into relevant sections and give a time limit to each section, a time allocation should include time for agreement of action points.
- Open Discussion
It is worthwhile to give a time slot for open discussion at the end. It is important that everyone at the meeting is aware of this, so they avoid interrupting other timeslots to get any of their own personal agenda across.
- Two separate types of the agenda
The person leading the meeting should have a detailed agenda containing all information on what will be discussed at the meeting. A brief bullet point agenda should be given to the other meeting participants. If the other participants are given the full detailed agenda, they may be focused more on reading ahead than engaging in the meeting.
- Review of meeting
The end of the meeting should include a review of the items discussed and the action points required to be taken.
- Retain documentation
All the minutes of the meeting should retained to support the conclusions and decisions made at the meeting
- Worthwhile effort
If you feel it is not worthwhile putting in the effort to document the agenda, discussions, conclusions and decisions of a meeting, you should maybe consider - is the meeting required in the first place.
What questions do you have?
We are happy to help. Please post your comment below or contact our friendly and knowledgeable team on 01 677 9000 or email:
info@cooneycarey.ie
To keep in touch, connect with
our friendly team on LinkedIn.
If you found this article interesting, please share it with other businesses.