13.1: Planning an Effective Meeting

At some time or another, you may be the one calling the meeting. A meeting doesn’t always have to be a major production, but there are some key points to consider during planning, execution and follow-up. Here are some tips on making the most of everyone’s time-including your own!

Success or failure in a meeting can usually be traced to the planning phase. Do your homework and you’re well on your way to success. If you don’t do your homework, you’ll pay a heavy price during the execution and follow-up phases.

Listed below are the key issues associated with planning a meeting. As you step through these items, remember to check on what is standard operating procedure in your organization.

Meetings vary from totally spontaneous to highly structured and ceremonial. Most are in the middle. If this group has been meeting regularly for a while, try to find out how they’ve done business in the past.

Decide If a Meeting Is Appropriate

In the book How to Make Meetings Work, Michael Doyle and David Strauss identify seven situations when having a meeting might be a good idea:

• You want information or advice from the group.
• You want to involve a group in solving a problem or making a decision.
• An issue needs to be clarified.
• You want to address concerns with the entire group.
• The group itself wants a meeting.
• There is a problem that involves people from different groups.
• There is a problem, but it’s not clear what it is or who is responsible for dealing with it.

In these situations, face-to-face discussion can help speed up the process. If your goal is just to pass on information, ask yourself if e-mail is a viable and appropriate substitute for the meeting. The purpose of many meetings is simply to share information and keep people up to date on a project. In these cases, try to substitute the meeting with an e-mail. This saves everyone’s time and still keeps everyone in the loop and you’re still meeting the goal for the meeting you just avoided! Local policy may dictate that some groups meet weekly, monthly, or quarterly, but if you’re not directed to meet and don’t need to ... don’t!

Define Your Purpose

Most Air Force professionals want to feel like they’ve accomplished something in a meeting. A clear purpose for the meeting is the first step towards success. If the meeting has no purpose, you shouldn’t meet. When you think about your purpose, try to define it in terms of a product that you want at the end of the meeting. "Talking about Issue \(X\) ” is not an ideal purpose statement for the meeting because it describes a process, not a product-try these alternatives: - To identify why Issue \(\mathrm{X}\) is a problem.

[The product is a clearer understanding of the problem.]

• To brainstorm ways to resolve Issue X.

[The product is a list of ideas about potential solutions.]

• To discuss different options for resolving Issue X.

[The product is list of pros and cons ... the decision will happen later.]

• To decide how the unit will handle Issue X.

[The product is discussion of pros and cons and a decision. Make sure attendees know who makes the decision. Is it the team, or is it the boss?]

Decide Who Should Be Invited

Have you gone to a meeting and after 5 or 10 minutes asked yourself, "Why am I here?" Remember that when you are holding a meeting! Invite only those directly involved in the issues being discussed. Meetings can be a time waster if too many or too few participants attend. Too many people equals chaos; too few means decisions have to be put on hold. If you’re trying to solve a problem or make a decision on a controversial issue, make sure you have adequate representation from all groups who have a voice in the decision. If you only invite people with one point of view, your meeting will run smoothly, but your decision may not stand up later.

Decide Where and When the Meeting Should Occur

Check the schedules of key personnel. Often the scheduling of your meetings will be determined by the schedule of any key personnel that will be attending. If you’re briefing a three-star, odds are that his secretary will be telling you when the meeting can occur, not the other way around.

If possible, pick the time of day to meet your purpose. If you’ve got flexibility, you might select the time of day for your meeting to help you meet your objectives. If you want your meeting attendees fired up and eager to contribute, you may want to schedule a meeting in the morning, the time when most people have more energy. If you want them inpatient and anxious to get done, try just before lunch. If you want them agreeable, try right after lunch. If you want them asleep, try midafternoon. Finally, you might try the just-before-quitting time tactic. If you’re lucky, you might have any opposition collapse just so they can catch the car pool.

Try to avoid meetings the first thing Monday morning. Give folks some time to read e-mail and prioritize the days and week ahead. If your organization is a service organization, don’t schedule meetings during customer service hours. The "Closed for Training" sign on the door does not fare well in the customer satisfaction department!

Keep it under an hour, or plan for breaks. Keep in mind that after 20 minutes or so, our minds tend to get lazy and wander. Try to keep the flow of the meeting going so that no agenda item goes longer than 20 minutes. Watch the clock (a timekeeper comes in handy). Try to keep the meeting to 90 minutes or less and plan for breaks if the meeting goes over an hour.

Reserve the room. Follow established procedures to reserve a conference room that can handle the attendee list.

Plan for Capturing Meeting Information

If this is not a routine meeting with an appointed recorder, take a moment to think about how you will capture the meeting information, both during the meeting and afterwards. Capturing the information is critical, but how best to do it will depend on the nature of the meeting. For example, during the meeting there may be tools and activities that can help you capture information, such as white boards, interactive whiteboards, recording devices, , photographs of notes, poster boards and flip charts, etc. Also, consider having someone dedicated to capturing notes. Just ask a team member or coworker to act as the recorder and take notes.

Meeting minutes capture the process and outcome of the meeting. They "close the loop" on the meeting and let the attendees know what was decided. If you have administrative personnel that can prepare minutes, consider having them attend the meeting to act as the recorder. If not, appoint someone to capture the minutes or prepare them yourself.

Send Out an Agenda

Create an agenda and send it to attendees no later than 1 or 2 days prior to the meeting. If this is not a time critical issue, if the attendees don’t work for you, or if you are asking people to present material or review long documents prior to the meeting, try to give at least a week’s notice. Also tell presenters to bring a copy of their material to leave with the recorder.

The agenda should include the date, time, location and purpose of the meeting. This advance notice gives everyone an opportunity to prepare their thoughts and know where the meeting is going ahead of time. If you are asking people to present material or prepare their thoughts, make sure they know how much time they have been allocated and when they will present.

Presenting material at a meeting

At some time or another, you may be asked to present information at a meeting, possibly in a briefing format. Whether or not you have time to prepare, it’s always important to remember the "Seven Steps for Effective Communication" introduced in chapter \(2 .\)

A meeting is just another communication platform and it’s still important to analyze your purpose and audience, research your topic, support your ideas, organize, draft, edit and seek feedback. If you don’t, you may fail to hit the target, lead the audience to an unproductive place, or worst case scenario, waste everyone’s time.

You may also want to use a detailed agenda on the day of the meeting to keep the group on track and stay focused. If you have trouble coming up with a solid agenda, chances are you really don’t have a reason to meet in the first place (see tip 1)!

Meetings Can Be Cancelled

Before you take people away from productive work time, ask yourself these questions:

• Is there a real need for this meeting? Perhaps the business can be accomplished by other means. Consider sending an e-mail or a memo to disseminate information.
• Will the decision makers and the majority of the group be present? If decision makers can’t be there, why bother? Likewise, if the majority of the group cannot attend, why hold the meeting? You will spend precious time updating those who missed the meeting before you can come to consensus on the issue. It’s better to put the meeting on hold.