Meetings (Information on running effective meetings)

Does anybody know of any good books or indeed websites which would have information about running meetings. I will soon be involved in work meetings and the whole thing scares me a little. I would like to know who speaks when, is it necessary to address the chair etc.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Re: Meetings

Any work meetings I have ever been involved in have been very casual and loosely organised - e.g. no formal addressing of issues through the chair etc. I guess it could depend on what line of work you're in though. I'm in software engineering. Some people manage meetings better than others mainly in terms of keeping people on topic, setting clear agendas, collecting and allocating action items, not letting individuals or meetings drift off topic or drag on longer than necessary etc. though.

Re: Meetings

1) Apply the 2-minute rule ruthlessly, i.e. if an issue can't be resolved or completed within 2 minutes, get the relevant parties to take it offline and revert with a solution.
2) If it's your meeting, make sure YOU keep control and get what YOU want done. Don't let others drive their own agendas.

Re: Meetings

Before the meeting:
- define the agenda, what's the purpose
- attendees. Who needs to be there (& who not)?
- pre-meeting materials. Any thing people need to have read or prepared before the meeting. Need to distribute materials in advance as appropriate (with the agenda), and solicit the input materials.
During the meeting:
- keep to the agenda, try and keep things on topic. If the discussion goes off topic or goes into too much detail, try to "take it off line"
- sumarise the conclusions, issues, action items at the end.
After the meeting:
- send out the minutes (may need to review them first)
- follow up on the action items.

I'm sure there's plenty of other material on the web also.

Hi Birdy,

What kind of meetings are you running. Are they public meetings, club meetings, board meetings, prayer meetings or perhaps business meetings?

If they are business meetings are they for information, communication, planning or decision making?

Finally try a google search on "effective meetings" and see if you get any hits.

ajapale

Many thanks for all the tips. It is board meetings that I am involved with. I especially like the 2 minute rule.

birdy said:

Many thanks for all the tips. It is board meetings that I am involved with. I especially like the 2 minute rule.

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Hi Birdy - If you are referring to formal Board of Directors meetings of a limited company, note that there are certain legal requirements which apply to such meetings. The Company Secretary (and I'm referring to the legal position of Secretary, not the MD's Personal Assistant here) should be able to advise on this.

Write the minutes of the meeting before it is held! Then you will know in advance what people should be saying and where the meeting should be going. You can direct them (gently) back on track if they stray into irrrelevant areas.

Do you mean "write the agenda before the meeting is held"? After the minutes are a record of what happened during the meeting and can't be known in advance. Unless you mean the minutes of the previous meeting?

The One Minute Manager series do a short book on effective meetings for a few Euros