Meetings management

1. Meetings Management
Taha Khan
MBA (Finance)

2. Reasons for meetings
 To accept reports from participants
 To reach a group judgement
 To analyse or solve a problem
 To gain acceptability for an idea, problem or
decision
 To achieve a training objective
 To reconcile conflicting views
 To communicate essential information to a group
 To generate new ideas or concepts

3. Meeting Management Importance
 Badly managed meetings can waste an enormous number
of working hours, simply because more than one person’s
time can be wasted simultaneously!!
 Effective: Did the meeting achieve its purpose or intended
outcome?
 Efficient: How well was the time managed?
 Enjoyable: Did you and others find it a positive or useful
experience? Would you look forward to the next one?

4. Planning meetings
 Effective planning - Effective meetings
 Meeting objective
 Who should attend
 When and where will the meeting be held
 What materials, equipment, refreshments will be
required

5. The agenda
 Time / Length of the meeting
 Location of the meeting
 List of participants
 Subject of the meeting
 Background information
 Items to be covered
 Pre-meeting preparation

6. Leading Meetings
 Start on time
 Opening remarks – set the right tone: serious
and positive
 Review objective of the meeting as expressed as
items in the agenda
 Get to business; move the first item
 Facilitate balanced participation among team
members
 Deal patiently but assertively with aggressive
members

7. Leading Meetings (contd.)
 Use agenda to keep discussion on track
 Exercise strategic flexibility: if discussions
productive don’t attempt to limit time on it
 If discussions need far more time, schedule
another meeting
 Close at appropriate time
 Offer summary of what has been accomplished
at the meeting and explain what will occur next

8. Meeting Map
1. Pre-meeting steps: Success of meeting and quality of
decisions that come out of it depends very much on the
preparation work that has been done.
- planning and agenda setting
- inviting the right people
- liaising with the team leader
- information gathering
- defining roles & choosing the best venues.
2. The opening: What you say and do in the first few
minutes can have a powerful impact on the ease and
effectiveness with which the rest of the meeting unfolds.
- 25% of members not with you in first few minutes.

9. Meetings Map
3. Clarify Objectives: No matter how apparently obvious
the objective, as meeting leader, you should never
assume it is understood, or understood in the same way,
by all the members.
- The meeting discussion remains focused and on track
- Prevents miscommunication and conflict
- Quality decisions
4. Clarify role of meeting leader: Ensures meeting
members have realistic expectations and gives the
leader permission to take action and intervene as
needed.

10. Meetings Map
5. Develop Meeting Agreements: Invite members to
identify behaviours that must be consistently
demonstrated by members if they are to meet their
meeting objectives. We agree:
- To participate fully
- To keep our comments on track
- To listen to all ideas
- To keep our discussions confidential
- To focus on how things work, rather than why they
won’t work.
- To ensure that no one dominates the discussion
- To fully support all decisions made.

11. Meetings Map
6. Describe the route: The meeting overview. Important for
individuals who like to work in a structured environment.
7. The Body: The reason for the meeting. Most work gets
done here.
8. Commitment to action and recap: An important step
largely ignored in the need to wind up the meeting
quickly.
- Time discussions to leave sufficient time for this step
- The group should return to each decision or outcome
and ensure that the next steps have been captured,
including who will do what and when.

12. Complaints about meetings
 Agenda not sent earlier; purpose not clear
 Wrong people attending the meeting
 Facilities not appropriate
 Not following agenda; meeting off track
 Leader domineering / weak
 Participants unprepared; too much or too little
contribution
 No outcome; decisions not implemented

13. Skills for effective meetings
 Ability to identify objective and tasks
 Ability to identify correct stakeholders and experts to be
invited to participate
 Ability to move the agenda forward while staying focused
 Ability to handle distracting and disruptive behaviour
 Ability to inspire innovative thinking and creative problem
solving
 An understanding of appropriate roles in the meeting
 A repertory of methods for generating ideas, selecting
logically and evaluating options