Eight Steps to More Effective Meetings

During the course of a Leadership Program many of the participants ask how to conduct effective meetings and even more groan under the impact of the meetings on their calendars.  This weeks reading, Eight Steps to More Effective Meetings which can be found at <http://www.cio.com/article/141300/Eight_Steps_to_More_Effective_Meetings>, provides some concrete data on the negative impact of ineffective meetings and makes eight recommendations:

  1.  Schedule only necessary meetings.

  2.  Eliminate, or reduce the frequency of, status meetings.

  3.  Create an agenda.

  4.  Prepare for how you want to run the meeting, not just what you want to cover.

  5.  Review the agenda and objectives at the beginning of the meeting.

  6.  Encourage participation wiht active listening.

  7.  Give a recap at the end of the meeting.

  8.  Deliver meeting minutes in a reasonable time.

Extra Credit:  Learn about using a “Parking Lot” to “park” items that surface which are not on the agenda in the Point Lookout article “Using the Parking Lot” which you’ll find at <http://www.chacocanyon.com/pointlookout/070912.shtml>.

Still more information can be found under Meeting Facilitation on the Tools page — e.g., for Group X, <http://www.morassociates.com/itlp/x-itlp/x-ldrshp-tools.html> — of your IT Leaders Program website.

Have a great week.  .  .  .  .     jim