Here are some pointers for planning and running company meetings.
Meetings may be incredibly effective venues for sharing ideas and making decisions, or they can be time-consuming wastes of time, depending on how well they are planned and how much follow-up is done. Consider the following measures to ensure that your corporate meetings bring value to your company.
Determine which concerns must be addressed. Meetings may be informative or motivating, and they can be used for brainstorming, decision-making, task-setting, crisis management, and evaluation. Understanding the purpose of the meeting can help you stay on track and deliver more meaningful outcomes.
Determine who will attend. You may not need to invite every employee or board member depending on the topic at hand. Keep the guest list as short as possible, including just the most essential parties. Send a Meeting Notification to each invitee.
Choose a time and location for the meeting, and inform everyone who will attend what the meeting will be about and how long it will last. Meetings should not last more than 30 minutes (you may need to meet more regularly if you think your issues will run overtime). Make sure you have the technology in place to enable people who cannot attend in person to participate. Although face-to-face meetings are the most successful, your meeting might be held more conveniently over phone or video conferencing with equivalent effectiveness.
Within the meeting, make a timetable for your agenda. You should have a concept of how long each problem should take to resolve. Place the less important items towards the front of the agenda so they don’t get overlooked, but prioritize any urgent concerns.
Share this agenda so that participants may arrive prepared, and make any necessary changes.
Choose who will lead the meeting. It will be their responsibility to keep the meeting on track, stimulate discussion, and summarize any ideas raised. A facilitator should not be a presenter as well.
Encourage, but do not compel agreement. Remember that you may call another meeting to make further choices.
Make sure everyone is aware of what was discussed, what was agreed, and what the next steps/takeaway ideas are at the conclusion of the meeting. Email the meeting summary to all participants for their records, and post the Meeting Minutes and any action plan the following day.
Before the next meeting, check in with team leaders to see where they are in terms of meeting objectives by the previous meeting’s deadlines.
You may increase your company’s productivity by completing these actions before, during, and after corporate meetings.
