Christopher Management Consultants

Be prepared for the meeting and do what you can to make sure goals and actions are well-defined. Declare a "meeting moratorium", one day each week that is kept free of meetings so you and colleagues can focus on important projects without distractions.

There are four phases involved in planning a successful meeting:

Achieve Focus - Prior to every meeting, develop a list of all the items that you would like to see discussed in a meeting. If you are the leader of the meeting, select from the list the most important items for the amount of time you wish to use. Prepare an agenda and send it to each participant prior to the meeting with any instructions you may have for them concerning the items. This way the entire team can come to the meeting focused on exactly what the expected outcomes for that meeting should be.

Identify Necessary Resources - Make a list of all the resources that you must have to successfully address on the agenda. These resources will include people, data, equipment, financing and possibly others. Then if one of your must resources becomes unavailable make a decision. Either postpone the entire meeting or that portion of it that's affected by the missing resource. Conducting a meeting lacking the proper resources or having the wrong ones is a waste of time and money.

Capture Results and Outcomes - Design the agenda to allow room for each individual to make notes of assignments and decisions made relevant to each agenda item. This way each person is responsible for their assignments and understanding of what went on in the meeting. This also eliminates the need for meeting minutes which are one persons understanding of the meeting events.

Build An Evaluation System - After each meeting, ask for feedback concerning how the meeting went and how the process could be improved. This could be done with a standard evaluation sheet handed out at the end of the meeting.

For More Information Contact:
Christopher Management Consultants
6515 Talmadge Court Suwanee,GA 30024-4271
Tel: 678-513-1081
FAX: 678-513-1082
Email: greg@christophermanagement.com
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