Meetings

Meetings are a gathering of more than one person to discuss a specific topic.

Well planned meetings have an agenda. They also have a meeting manager who keeps the meeting on track and sets clear objectives.

Poorly planned meetings generally miss out on one or more of those components, and as a result, tend to waste the time of the attendees.

Because of the rising collaboration required in an increasingly complex business environment, meetings are not going away anytime soon. In fact, with teleconferencing, web-hosted meeting software, and videoconferencing, meetings are actually increasing. And the audience is becoming more global.

Some good meeting practices to follow include:

• Schedule the meeting precisely to the agenda. If you think it will take 37 minutes, don’t schedule an hour.
• Start meetings at 7 minutes past the hour. It will keep people who were in hour-long meetings (in violation of the previous practice) from showing up late.
• Always have an agenda and give it out in advance. It will help people prepare.