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Benoit Charlet Benoit Charlet
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Effective meetings






Transcription

Welcome to this light up session on effective meeting

Last time, we saw that a great meeting is made of a meeting content and a meeting process.

Today, we'll explore the meeting content.

The main question of this session is: How do we make a meeting effective ?

The answer is articulated around three themes:

Focus

Every meeting should have a clear and well specific enough objective. If we meet, there is a reason otherwise we don't meet and we go for a drink ;-).
"What do we want to reach at the end of this meeting ?" Is the first question you need to answer when you plan a meeting.

Why is this important?
Because if participants can't articulate the clear purpose of a meeting, they will make up their own. If this happens, your meeting will wander in as many directions as there are participants and you will lose time and energy.
Because a clear objective gives a reason for coming together and collaborate together in order to achieve a common goal.

The corollary of the objective is the agenda.
Every meeting should follow a practical agenda. An agenda is a kind of roadmap that will ensure your meeting serves its purpose, its objectives. Agendas are tools to keep meetings focused.

Prepare

Take the time to prepare for the meeting.
This may take only a few minutes to collect your thoughts and write them down or it may take hours for a formal presentation. But advance preparation will allow the meeting to move forward smoothly, eliminating wasted time and the impression that the meeting is unproductive.

Be prepared doesn't imply only the chairman but also every attendee of the meeting. You need to request every attendee to prepare for the meeting. Please do that enough time before the meeting that attendees have time to be ready by the meeting time.
For example, for a document review, all the reviewers should get the document to review long time enough to be able to read the document, write down their remarks and questions. So, during the meeting you focus on remarks and questions.

Remember

Capturing and reporting key outcomes of the meeting are critical for follow-up activities. At a minimum, be sure to capture these following items in your meeting notes:

Once the meeting has concluded, arrange for the recorder's notes to be posted or distributed to all participants.
That's it, you have an effective meeting.

Don't forget, that meetings serve also the people's social needs. ;-) That's what we are going to explore next time.

Enjoy your next effective meeting!

Bye, bye.