Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

2. To learn how to Plan a meeting. Lead a meeting. Be an effective participant in meetings. Take good meeting minutes. Network effectively. Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

3. Start by answering these questions: What planning should precede a meeting? When I’m in charge, how do I keep a meeting on track? What decision-making strategies work well in meetings? Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

4. Start by answering these questions: How can I be an effective meeting participant? What should go in meeting minutes? How can I use informal meetings with my boss to advance my career? Do virtual meetings require special consideration? Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

5. Types of Meetings • Parliamentary • Follow formal procedure; use Robert’s Rules of Order. • Staff • Typically are held to announce new policies and products, answer questions, share ideas, and motivate employees. • Team • Bring team members together to brainstorm and create. • One-on-One • Are perhaps the most common kind of meeting.

6. Purposes of Meetings • Share information. • Brainstorm ideas. • Evaluate ideas. • Make decisions. • Create a document. • Motivate members.

7. Help participants deal with issues in a timely and thorough manner. Make ground rules explicit. Pay attention to people and the process at hand. If conflict gets out of hand, focus attention on the group process. As Chair of Meetings

8. To Use Standard Agendas • Understand what the group has to deliver and when. • Identify the problem. • Gather information and share it. • Establish criteria. • Generate alternate solutions. • Measure alternatives against criteria. • Choose the best solution.

9. To be an Effective Participant • Prepare for meetings. • Speak when you have the chance. • Make notes so that you can be succinct. • While speaking • Show that you’ve done your homework. • Link your comment to that of someone in power. • Find an ally ahead of time and agree to acknowledge each other’s contributions at the meeting.

10. Meeting Minutes Include • Decisions reached. • Action items, where someone needs to implement or follow up on something. • Open issues—issues raised but not resolved. • Who was present, wording of motions and amendments, and vote results.

11. Virtual Meeting Caveats • Be aware of the limitations of your channel. • E-mail may seem more brusque. • Audio meetings lack nonverbal cues. • Videoconferences only show what the lens picks up. • Technology can fail.