Effective Meetings

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Effective Meetings
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Meeting Types

• Information Giving
• Supplying information to others or informing them
  of decisions/actions and the reasons for these
  decisions/actions
• Information Gathering
• Collecting information from individuals who have
  different perspectives about or knowledge of an
  issue or problem

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Meeting Types

• Problem Solving
• Analyzing the causes of and potential solutions
  to specific problems
• Decision Making
• Determining a course of action to take with
  regard to an important project, service, or task

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Key Roles and Responsibilities

• Leader
• Note Taker
• Timekeeper
• Facilitator (if applicable)

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Effective Meetings

• Pre-plan and communicate.
• Decide what type of meeting is needed.
• Identify topics and the person responsible for
  leading discussion on the topic.
• Use presentations if necessary, but keep them
  short and use as a method of stimulating, not
  suppressing, discussion.
• Create and distribute an agenda.
• Distribute in plenty of time beforehand so people
  can prepare.
• Arrange logistics.

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Effective Meetings

• Open the meeting.
• Start on time -- always.
• Review meeting purpose and agenda.
• Introduce participants (if needed).
• Set expectations.
• Assign roles (leader, note taker, time keeper,
  facilitator).

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Effective Meetings

• Conduct the meeting.
• Structure the discussion.
• Stay on track follow the agenda.
• Stay engaged and keep everyone engaged.
• No food during the meeting after as a reward.
• Encourage disagreement.
• But promote respectful interactions.
• Summarize each topic.

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Effective Meetings

• Close the meeting.
• Summarize meeting outcomes.
• Specify next steps and specific action items by
  person.
• Get feedback on meeting effectiveness.
• Meet goals?
• End on time -- always.

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Effective Meetings

• Follow up.
• Send a quick thank you e-mail.
• Distribute meeting summary via e-mail.
• Set deadlines for completion of action items.

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Meetings That Work Plans Bosses Can Approve

• Decision makers are as motivated by friendships,
  concerns for popularity, and self interest as by
  the cold, hard facts gleaned from rigorous
  analysis.
• Planning documents too often ignore whats
  really at stake among participants and fail to
  establish a logical, agreed-on course of action.

• Meetings That Work Plans Bosses Can Approve,
  Paul Lovett, HBR, Nov-Dec 1988.

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• In meetings with decision makers, you must get
  them to focus on the important elements--your
  vision and your plan of action.
• Not to get bogged down with lots of raw numbers.
• They wont remember lots of boring numbers.
• Decision makers want four questions answered

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The Four Critical Questions

• What is the plan?
• Why is the plan recommended?
• What are the objectives?
• How much will it cost to implement the plan?
• And what is the reasonable upside potential?
• What is the ROI?

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What Is The Plan?

• Requires a specific future-tense statement of
  strategy.
• Sales department will increase its sales staff
  in order to increase its share of advertising
  dollars in our medium by 15.

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Why Is The Plan Recommended?

• Make the plans rationale clear to the decision
  maker.
• Youre laying out what the situation is.
• In just enough detail to get a decision
• Not too many raw facts and numbers.
• Synthesized information that supports the
  rationale is vital.
• Propose a specific program that maps out
  well-defined course of action.

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What Are The Goals?

• Goals are what you expect to happen if the plan
  is adopted.
• Limit the financial details to a few important
  numbers.
• Just a few numbers are enough to focus the goals
  discussion on the right issues.
• Objectives should be strategic, not primarily
  financial.

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How Much Will The Plan Cost?

• Request enough resources to carry out the plan
  and achieve the goals.
• Financial and human resources
• Forecast reasonable upside financial results.
• Forecast a ROI.

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Overall Meeting Strategy

• Keep it simple.
• Not too many numbers
• Not too much written material
• Keep it focused on the four questions.
• Keep it informal.
• Encourage discussion and give and take
• Encourage informality
• Close!
• Get approval and a firm commitment.

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Decision Tree
B Go
A Go
B No Go
A
B Go
A No Go
B No Go