Organizations can't do without meetings but they can't do with too many meetings either. Raise questions about your current meeting process and see if you can make them more efficient!

1. 7 MYTHS ABOUT MEETINGS
- Busted -
A Melissa J Choo presentation

2. #1 Meetings are NECESSARY

3. THE FACT
Meetings incur hourly
COSTS to the organization

4. But we often FAIL TO QUESTION
Are those issues which cannot be
handled effectively outside a meeting?
Will the meeting add value?

5. #2 A ROUGH AGENDA will suffice

6. BUT Brainstorm?
What’s the
Solve problems?
PURPOSE of the
meeting?
Make decisions?

7. Great ideas?
What do you
want to ACHIEVE
at the end of the Solutions to problems?
meeting?
Decisions?

8. #3 Meetings should try to cover as
MANY TOPICS as possible

9. Instead of frantically
LISTING meeting topics..

10.  Start with a CLEAR SCOPE
 LIMIT agenda items
 Focus on achieving a
CLEAR OUTCOME

11. #4 LONGER but less frequent meetings
are more effective

12. This leads to INFORMATION OVERLOAD.
People work more effectively over short periods of time.

13. Plan SMALL MEETINGS that focus on
one or two issues.
This allows you to match experts with
issues for more productive meetings.

14. #5 There is no time for THOROUGH PREPARATION

15. People are TOO BUSY meeting
OTHER DEADLINES. Preparation
for meetings becomes a lower
priority.

16. Nonetheless, BUY-IN comes from a
convincing pitch.
People expect to be IMPRESSED.

17. If presenting at a
meeting, REHEARSE
BEFOREHAND.

18. TEST YOUR DEMO more than
once. If you discover
FUNCTIONAL GLITCHES..

19. There’s time to FIX IT

20. In addition..
Always have a
BACK-UP PLAN..

21. Especially one
that is equally
likely to IMPRESS

22. #6 Answer questions SPONTANEOUSLY

23. You’ll want to avoid the
embarrassment of not
having the answers or
appearing DUMBSTRUCK

24. ANTICIPATE questions,
PREPARE the answers &
ANSWER with FINESSE

25. #7 Going through MINUTES is unnecessary

26. Minutes TRACK action items, RECORD decisions & INFORM others

27. They can be an important point of REFERENCE..

28. RECORD KEY IDEAS,
AGREEMENTS &
ACTION POINTS

29. Go through FINAL MEETING MINUTES &
COMPARE what was written to what you have recorded

30. Check that all ACTION POINTS & TASK LIST
with people responsible & timelines are accurate

31. Thank You!
Leave a comment or get in touch to discuss!
A Melissa J Choo presentation All images from www.flickr.com