Meeting Planning

Not Another Meeting!

That's what many thousands of business people around the world think every day. Time wasting, inefficient interrruptions to your day, with few concrete outcomes - and for many of them, you don't even know why you need to be there, as the things under discussion have little to do with you, or could at least be decided without you having to sit through two hours of boredom.

Meetings Don't Need to be Like That!

Meetings can be efficient, focused, fun(!), and help the business benefit from the full participation of the team as they bounce ideas off each other. It all depends on how the meeting planning is carried out, and how the meeting is run. So here are some key tips on how to plan and run your meetings effectively:

The Meeting Agenda
	Most meeting agendas are a scribbled set of notes that someone throws together just before the meeting, if indeed any agenda is produced at all. This is a primary cause of meandering, boring and inefficient meetings. Creating an effective agenda is one of the most important elements for a productive meeting. The agenda for a well planned meeting communicates important information such as: Objectives or intended outcomes - this is more than just topics for discussion - setting the intention up front really helps get the outcomes you want. Who is leading each discussion topic, or giving the presentation for that section - so that it's not just chit-chat. An allocated time for each objective and topic within that objective. Any supporting information relevant to any objective or topic. An indication of what preparation is required by the participants in order to be ready to fully participate. Any known follow up tasks and responsibilities (you will be adding to this during the meeting). With a well defined agenda like this, you will be able to keep the meeting focused and on track, and ensure that the participants know what is going to be discussed and where they can contribute. When you use mind maps for your meeting agendas, you benefit because: The overall objective of the meeting is at the center of the Mind Map, and therefore in front of you. You literally can't lose sight of the objective of the meeting. The first level branches give a clear indication of the intended outcomes. Again, this allows everyone to keep a clear focus on why they are there and how they can contribute. The second level branches are the topics that need to be covered, with the leader, time allocated, hyperlinks to supporting information, desired outcome for that topic, and any known follow up tasks being standard sub-branches. The participants will soon get used to what is embodied in any topic, and keep to topic and time. You can see how you are going at a glance and manage the time for the remaining topics based on the objectives and topics to be discussed. This is dramatically better than linear notes where you often lose track of time and how much is really left to be covered. Everyone can see where they can contribute, and what they need to prepare for before the meeting. With the hyperlinks on the topics, everything is in one place, and when the agenda is emailed out to the participants, everyone can turn up fully prepared. The Mind Map is used for recording the discussion during the meeting, the decisions and follow up actions, meaning that everyone can have the minutes of the meeting immediately the meeting is over, because there is no "writing up" of the minutes required. Tips for creating a good meeting agenda Meeting planning is easy when you follow these simple steps: Make sure the objectives and topics are identified well ahead of time, and that everyone has confirmed their attendance. Make sure that all the presenters / leaders have an agreed time for their topics. Make it realistic, and only schedule 50 minutes for an hour long meeting. Make sure that only proposals for topics that are relevant to the overall objectives of the meeting are accepted into the agenda. Keep it tight and focused - everyone will thank you in the long term. Produce the Mind Map of the agenda according to the structure shown above. Send the agenda to the attendees again a day before the meeting, reminding them of the date, time and objectives, and what they need to do to prepare for the meeting. Have some way of measuring whether the meeting has met its intended objectives and outcomes. Envision the meeting as you would like it to happen, and prepare everything (including agenda, attendees, venue, information) in order for the meeting to go as you envision it. Make sure you are aware of the needs, desires and agendas of the participants. Of course, the most important part of planning the meeting and creating an effective agenda is to follow it during the meeting!

	Plan your Meetings so they Stay on Time
	Very often meetings start late, and finish later. This punishes the people who are on time and rewards those who are tardy. Hardly the message you want to be giving! Start your meetings on time, and do not tolerate tardiness. Set an expectation that all your meetings run to time. This sets a behavioral standard for the group, and social pressure to conform. Here are some things you can do during meeting planning to make sure that this happens: Let people know ahead of time that the meeting will start "sharp at...", and that all participants are expected to be ready to start at that time. Email them half an hour before the meeting is due to start - especially if you are in the process of breaking some bad meeting habits. Start the meetings at unusual times - nothing sticks in people's minds like a meeting scheduled to run from 9:07 until 10:03. You will automatically get them policing the time because it is unusual. It breaks through the idea that 9 o'clock means somewhere between 9 and quarter past. Of course, you need to make sure that you really do start on time. Close the doors when you start the meeting. Again if you are breaking some bad meeting habits, post a note on the outside of the door stating the meeting time. You could even consider a latecomer fine where they have to put a dollar for every minute they are late. At the end of the week, everyone who wasn't late at all gets a treat. Even if for some reason it is impossible to start the meeting on time, you should still finish on time, so that people don't need to be late for other meetings. It was your responsibility to get through the material on time. One critical reason why you need everyone there at the start of the meeting is that you all look at the Mind Map together. Briefly go over the major objective from the Mind Map title, and the intended outcomes from the first level branches. Now of course, you're not always the organizer of the meeting, and you may have someone who doesn't plan their meetings the way you do, and they may turn up late. If this happens consistently, you might like to tactfully ask if it would be better to schedule the meeting for 15 minutes later. If you are an attendee at meetings that go over time at the end, wherever possible excuse yourself at the intended finish time - after all, that is the time that you had been asked for, and you have given that amount of time already. Keep any discussion (both from yourself and others) strictly on topic, whether you are the organizer or an attendee at a meeting.

	How Long Should Your Meeting Be?
	If you have regular meetings like weekly sales meetings or monthly business planning meetings, you probably have a pretty good idea of the amount of information that needs to be covered. Your objective is to make sure that only the things that need to be covered are included in the agenda, and that the minimum amount of time to effectively cover the topics is budgeted for the meeting. You don't want to waste anybody's time. If there is too much to cover in a meeting, or different parts of the meeting require different people present, consider breaking it up into two more focused meetings. For regularly scheduled meetings, make sure you have the agenda defined half way between the last meeting and the next one. Allocate 1/6 of the time for reporting back on follow up items from last meeting, 2/3 of the time for the current agenda items, and the remaining 1/6 of the time on planning for the next meeting. Schedule the items with the easy ones first, and the more controversial it is, the later it goes in the agenda. You need to make sure that there is some significant change in either speaker or method of presentation every 20 minutes at the most apart, and if you are having a longer meeting, you need to have a 15 minute break every 90 minutes. If the meeting starts to go off topic, then it may be that you need a break to re-focus the meeting. If it's supposed to be a short meeting, you could have a standing meeting - people don't tend to dally long when they are on their feet. Make sure that everyone has enough information to get up to speed and to know what the issues and possible alternatives are before the meeting. This will mean that you can get through the decision making process more quickly. Reduce the number of people to only those necessary to accomplish the goal. Reduce the number of issues and tasks to only those necessary to accomplish the goal. If everyone there has a stake in the outcome, they'll be focused.

	Plan Interesting Meetings
	Corporate meetings can be boring. Whenever possible, include hands-on activities, get people involved in extending the Mind Map for the meeting, brainstorming ideas, giving or being involved in live demonstrations, field trips, games, role-playing, etc. Don't be afraid to mix it up - variety is what keeps people interested. Encourage a fun, non judgmental, playful creative environment and you'll get better ideas coming out at the end of it. Remember, laughter stimulates blood flow, strengthens the immune system, reduces levels of stress producing hormones, and reduces pain perception. Organize contests to generate ideas and offer prizes to encourage participation. A little friendly competition can bring great results. If your meetings tend to be dominated by a few people, you could give "talking tokens" to people, and they only have a certain number per meeting, and each one only gives them a certain length of time to make their point. Or you could use a "talking stick" and people are only allowed to talk when they have the stick - and they must pass it on to someone else within a specified time. When preparing your Mind Map during your meeting planning, make sure you make it colorful and where possible put some funny pictures in to spice it up a bit.