Meetings are real management tools in both work and private environments: neighborhood meetings, fractional meetings, family meetings, condominium meetings, business meetings, parent meetings, etc.
Organizing an effective meeting is not easy and certainly cannot be improvised.
Here are 9 simple steps to follow to organize and conduct a useful and profitable meeting .
Tips and tricks for getting great results from your meetings .
Types of meetings.
There are various types of meetings, depending on the purpose they have.
Decision-making meeting
It is the meeting in which decisions are made, in which choices must be made, each choice presupposes at least two alternatives to choose from, therefore at least two proposals must be presented in the meeting.
The tools mainly used are Decision Making and the Pareto Diagram .
Analytical
meeting In this meeting phenomena are analyzed, the causes of problems and therefore their solutions must be sought.
The most used methods and tools are Problem Solving , Brainstorming techniques , stimulation of Creativity , the Cause and Effect diagram .
Coordination
meeting It is the meeting made with staff members for organizational purposes.
In this type of meetings, communication is two-way and the exchange of information between the participants takes place.
Debates, interviews and activity planning tools are used as comparison methods (Gantt charts) .
Training / information meeting
This is the typical meeting in which communication is one-way, ie in which the conductor provides information, notions or directions to the participants.
Among the most used methods are the conference and play rolling.
Motivational meeting
It is a meeting whose main purpose is to motivate the team members, to strengthen the team spirit. Outdoor training and resource involvement
techniques can be used .
Remember that communication is only a minimal verbal part , so you have to pay a lot of attention to body language and para-verbal language , as you can read in “ What we say with our eyes and reveal with our senses “.
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When it is appropriate or necessary to hold meetings
Meetings can be called for various reasons, the main ones being:
- to give or seek information
- to solve problems
- to generate ideas
- to make decisions
- to define intervention and action plans
- for clarification
- to negotiate
- to create and strengthen the team
- to improve relationships and relationships between people
- to make the point of the situation.
9 steps to follow to organize, convene and conduct an effective meeting.
1st phase
decide if the meeting is necessary and then define the work plan , the purpose and the objectives to be achieved.
Draw up the agenda of the topics that will be addressed.
Plan the structure of the meeting, choosing the most appropriate time of the day, defining its duration and its temporal distribution.
2nd phase:
define the details of the various topics that will be addressed and any responsibilities to be assigned.
3rd phase
define and call in advance the participants to the meeting by formal invitation , trying to limit the number only to people who can make a contribution.
Make sure you have all the know-how available and necessary to solve the problem. If necessary, you can ask a colleague or other attendees what other people to invite to the meeting.
Provide participants with all useful and necessary information, such as:
- reasons, purpose and objectives of the meeting,
- date of the meeting,
- starting time,
- duration and end time,
- place,
- well-defined topics (agenda or agenda).
4th phase
ask the participants to prepare themselves on the topics and points of their relevance.
It is preferable to write the topics of the agenda in the form of questions , in order to facilitate the resolution of problems.
5th phase
introduce the meeting with opening sentences and arguments that have the purpose of breaking the ice.
Then summarize the reason and reasons why the meeting was called and illustrate the purpose and objectives that you want to achieve. Then, introduce the participants to the agenda topics and their distribution over time.
6th phase
conduct the meeting respecting the timing, distribution and duration for each topic.
Avoid interrupting the meeting as much as possible with phone calls, external visits, etc.
Make sure that all participants have their say, prompting those who have not expressed their opinion.
Make brief summaries while conducting the meeting, summarizing the concepts and ideas expressed.
To make sure that everyone has understood the concepts expressed by a person, it is advisable that the leader of the meeting also summarizes them in his own words.
7th phase
is a very undervalued and neglected phase but it is among the most important .
Make a summary of the main topics covered and list the conclusions of the meeting, then agree on a plan of action .
Among the most frequent mistakes made by those who conduct the meetings is the lack of definition of a work plan .
Often, thanks to having gone long and therefore the lack of time or the tiredness and loss of attention on the part of the participants and the conductor, we forget or do not have enough clear ideas to define and draw up an action plan .
A decision or analytical meeting without an action plan cannot be effective.
The agreed action plan must include:
- who
- does
- what
- by when.
It must be unequivocal who has to do what actions and, if any, to whom he responds.
The aim of the meeting is also to ensure that all participants push in one direction, that is, in the shared direction.
8th phase
also this phase is often underestimated.
Make the minutes of the meeting with the details and decisions made, the conclusions and the action plan, then distribute it to all participants and other people who may be affected by the meeting’s decisions and conclusions.
The minutes must be distributed within 2 days of the meeting.
9th phase
this is certainly the most neglected and forgotten phase but it is very important .
Each meeting that includes an action plan must be followed by a subsequent meeting that allows to take stock of the situation, to verify the progress of the work plan, to verify the actual achievement of the objectives, according to the principle of the Wheel of Deming or PDCA .
This follow up or feedback meeting allows to understand the goodness of the defined action plan and to verify its implementation by the participants.
More tips and tricks for making meetings truly effective work tools
It is important that the chosen location is suitable for the type of meeting you want to hold and that the arrangement of the chairs allows all participants to see each other.
Lighting and any supporting material should be appropriate to the topics covered.
All the main and most interesting points must be noted by both the conductor and the participants.
If the discussion is largely held by the conductor, there should be another person with the task of recorder.
During the meeting it is necessary to make short summaries in which the points touched, the concepts and ideas expressed are summarized, in this way all the participants have the opportunity to align themselves on the same point.
At the end of the meeting, before closing and dismissing the participants, a general summary must always be made .
A good conduct of the meeting requires the conductor to be able to make the atmosphere relaxed , especially in the initial opening phase.
The more informal and non-evaluative the climate, the easier it is to get people’s active participation. It is essential to avoid criticizing and ridiculing the ideas of the participants, but interventions should be encouraged, creativity stimulated and balance with interventions contrary to the thinking of the majority, in order to obtain a deeper reflection.
All opinions must be tolerated, as well as objections and criticisms from the participants.
Control of the meeting must be maintained at all times , avoiding irrelevant topics, ramblings, overly animated discussions or unnecessary discussions, and limiting questions that do not lead to satisfactory conclusions.
It is equally important that discussions are not monopolized by a few people and that people do not interrupt one another.
Everyone must be put in a position to be able to express their ideas that must be rationalized and synthesized by the conductor.
Sometimes it is necessary to take positions of provocation in order to push the reflections in depth.
The fundamental thing is, however, that whoever organizes the meeting has very clear in mind the purpose and therefore where they want to arrive at the end of the meeting.
If this is not clear, the meeting becomes a chaos, the considerations and interventions of the participants lead him from side to side and the meeting ends without a conclusion .
Without the clarity of where you want to go and arrive , the participants are committed to defending their ideas and positions rather than working together in a single direction in search of a solution.
Evaluation checklist
Especially in the initial stages, to understand and evaluate the goodness of a meeting, you can use the following checklist of questions to ask yourself and the participants:
- Are the purpose and objectives of the meeting clear?
- Has the agenda or agenda been defined?
- Was the information on place, date and duration given?
- Am I prepared on the topics?
- Have all participants been given the opportunity to make their contribution?
- Did the meeting start and end on time?
- Do all participants need to be there for the entire duration?
- Was the meeting held on defined topics only?
- Were all decisions made consistent and clear?
- Is it clear who has to do what?
- Have deadlines been defined for implementing the defined actions?
- Have the minutes of the meeting been drawn up and distributed?
