Managing Office Meetings
Office meetings can greatly improve productivity at work if they are run the right way. Too often, meetings in the workplace are seen as mere wastes of time. On the other hand, there are companies that know the value of a team meeting to come up with new ideas and fresh strategies. Here are a few tips to help improve the quality of your meetings.
Prepare an agenda -- This might sound like common sense, but not all people who hold meetings are able to clearly outline what they need to discuss. Write down these points of discussion and allocate a period of time for each item. A list will also be important so that no item will be forgotten.
Prepare the attendees -- If possible, you can prepare those who will be attending the meeting by e-mailing them the agenda beforehand. This is specially important for meetings where brainstorming is the key purpose. You can email the points of discussion two or three days ahead so that when the team members come for the meeting, they have already done their research and have come up with some ideas.
Set the mood -- If it will be a quick meeting, then say so before you begin. If, on the other hand, you want to encourage participation, discussion and brainstorming, then you must prepare the meeting room. You can prepare the chairs in a circular form or in no particular arrangement at all. If some members wish to stand up and roam about or look out the window, then let them do so.
Stay on track -- Stories are truly acceptable and humour is definitely more than welcome. However, these should come at appropriate times during the meeting. For example, in a meeting that aims at coming up with a creative, unique concept for an upcoming event, it is perfectly acceptable – even advantageous – for the discussion to lead to crazy topics and wild ideas.
Never end without an action plan -- You must have a decision by the end of the meeting – even if that decision is simply doing further research or setting a date for a follow-up meeting. Outline the decisions made and the tasks that each member has to accomplish. Remind the group of the team's deadline. Someone can record these tasks and email them to the group at the end of the meeting, too.
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