Effective meetings are first based on clear line of sight to the end result, preferably something that can be documented. All too often meeting purposes rely on determining WHAT the deliverable ought be. For most groups, this clearly indicates weak methodology. Here are the eight most common reasons or meeting purposes and some of the benefits and problems associated with each.

Eight Meeting Purposes

· Analysis —highly complex situations may require multiple subject matter experts. Frequently experts have their own vernacular or vocabulary, and a meeting is appropriate to homogenize understanding and agreement. Have you ever run a meeting with PhD engineers and creative marketing folks together? Sometimes it sounds like they are from different planets.

· Assignments —structured meetings or workshops provide an excellent means of building agreement around roles and responsibilities. When using the FAST technique, you can leave the meeting with a consensually built GANTT chart, estimation of resource requirements, and approximation of budget needs.

· Decision-Making —since resources typically fall short of the demands, prioritization is critical for high group performance. No team has the time or resource to do everything. Consensual understanding around prioritization provides one of the best justifications for hosting a meeting or workshop.

· Idea Generation —the reason that groups are smarter than the smartest person in the group is because groups create more options than simply aggregating the input of participants. Many of the best ideas did not walk into the meeting; rather they were created during the meeting, based on stimulation from others.

· Information Exchange —by far and away the most common reason for meetings is also one of the worst possible reasons for justifying a meeting. With instant access and electronic filing cabinets, coming together face-to-face is a very expensive way to exchange information. A better justification would be to address questions about clarity, agreement, and omissions of related information or the impact the information ought have on the behavior of participants.

· Inspiration and Fun —meetings can be effectively used to both reward, incent, and incite but usually on a large-scale that involve complimentary events or sessions that also involve learning and building teamwork.

· Persuasion —probably the worst reason for holding a meeting is to convince other people to change their behavior. There are three primary forms of persuasion; namely identification (eg, advertising), internalization (ie, long-lasting), and forced-compliance (ie, “gun to the head”). Meetings are sub-optimal for all three forms of persuasion, and therefore are rarely successful at persuasion.

· Relationships —simply pulling together people face-to-face provides the glue that can pull people together and get them to work more cooperatively. Frequently venting, or managing conflict, can result in increased effectiveness. Probably the best time to invest in face-to-face meetings is when people don’t agree with each other and need to both reconcile their points of view and agree to move on.

Source: https://mgrush.com/blog/2013/02/14/meeting-purposes/

2. What are the types of meeting

Types of Meetings

Formal meeting: When any meeting is arranged by following official formalities, rules and decorum then it is called formal meeting.
Informal meeting: When any meeting is arranged without maintaining official rules and regulation, it is called informal meeting. Such meeting can be called upon by giving short notice using informal media. This type of meeting is very common in the workplace.
Private meeting: Private meeting is called for discussing confidential and restricted issues where general people have prohibition to access. Only selected people are allowed to attend the meeting.
Public meeting: When meeting is held in a public place to discuss issues regarding public interests, it is called public meeting. Here, general people are cordially invited.
Company meeting: When a meeting is called by the general manager, director or secretary (Who has power of attorney) of a company to discuss issues or affairs of a company, it is called company meeting, e.g. Annual general meeting. Statutory meeting, Directors’ meeting which are required to be called by abiding company law.

6. Committee meeting: When the chief of the committee calls a meeting on certain issues for which the committee is formed, it is called committee meeting. Only members of the committee can take part in such meeting.

Source: http://www.businesscommunicationarticles.com/types-of-meetings/

3. What makes a good meeting

What Is a Good Meeting?

A meeting is a gathering of people to present or exchange information, plan joint activities, make decisions, or carry out actions already agreed upon. Almost every group activity or project requires a meeting, or meetings, of some sort.

Knowing how to hold efficient and effective meetings can help make projects successful. In a good meeting, participants' ideas are heard, decisions are made through group discussion and with reasonable speed, and activities are focused on desired results. Good meetings help generate enthusiasm for a project, build skills for future projects, and provide participants with techniques that may benefit them in their future careers.

Good meetings require good leaders and good participants. A good leader understands the purpose of a meeting, makes sure that all participants understand this purpose, helps keep the discussion on track, works with participants to carry out the business of the meeting in the time allotted, and tries to ensure that everyone is involved appropriately in discussions. These responsibilities often require a leader to distribute an agenda and other written materials prior to a meeting.

Good participants come to a meeting prepared for the business at hand—with reports ready, concerns over key issues thought out, and questions about key issues organized. They also bring to the table their best listening skills and group manners. These participants, for example, take turns talking, stay on the point of discussion, and help to move decisions forward.

What Does It Take To Plan and Run a Productive Meeting?

Any successful meeting has a structure. Each part may be more or less developed; sometimes (especially in informal meetings) parts are barely visible. Here are eight setup tasks for those who wish to lead successful meetings.

Set a Time That Works

Choose a time of day when people are not likely to be tired, hungry, or otherwise distracted. Let people know that you will begin the meeting on time and take attendance with a sign-up sheet. Also let them know that minutes of the meeting will be taken. Before the meeting, ask a member of the group to take minutes. This way, the person will be prepared with a notebook, pen or pencil, and agenda.

Set a realistic time limit for meetings (for example, a 2-hour meeting that will begin at 1 p.m. and end at 3 p.m.). Try to stick to the time limit. Make sure the meeting room is free of distractions. Holding a meeting in the main room of a busy restaurant may sound like fun, but the likelihood of accomplishing anything meaningful there is slim.

Set an Agenda

An agenda helps spell out the items and issues to be discussed and the results that everyone expects. For some groups, reports from officers, approval of minutes from a previous meeting, and reports from subcommittees are routine for general meetings. There may be specific old and new business. In other situations, a meeting may focus on making decisions or recommendations on a series of issues.

An agenda should help participants see what will be expected of them. You may want to leave time for suggestions from the group about any new subjects that participants want to discuss. Don't forget to review the agenda as you start the meeting to let participants know what to expect and to find out whether additional items need to be addressed.

Distribute Available Written Materials in Advance of the Meeting

Sending out a draft agenda and any available proposals or reports a week or two ahead of the meeting helps participants think through issues, prepare for discussions, and feel more comfortable making decisions.

Set Up Tasks and Divide Chores

You may be very energetic, but you are only one person. Dividing the chores—asking specific group members to report on specific topics, establishing a subcommittee to investigate a major issue, or getting someone to help with finding resources—helps strengthen the group and makes for more productive meetings in two ways. First, more work gets done. Second, the more your committee members are involved, and the more active and productive they are, the more committed they will be to the group's goals. Don't be afraid to delegate tasks!

Planning a Successful Project

For more information on how to plan a successful project, see the National Youth Network's Planning a Successful Crime Prevention Project. This 28-page workbook explains the five steps of the Success Cycle:

Assessing Your Community's Needs.
Planning a Successful Project.
Lining Up Resources.
Acting on Your Plans.
Nurturing, Monitoring, and Evaluating.

The workbook includes six worksheets for you to take notes on. You can get a copy of this planning workbook from the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse, listed in the Resources section. Good luck!

Set Up Discussions So That Everyone Gets a Say

Discussing topics sometimes takes more time than you would like. Although there are ways to keep a discussion moving, it is essential that the person running the meeting preside impartially. Make sure that people who disagree have a chance to state their cases. Your job in facilitating discussions or debates is to be the referee, a person who does not show favor to people or their ideas. As a referee, you will allow discussion to flow and provide participants a chance to discuss differing opinions on issues. Your job is to bring opposing sides together by showing areas where they agree and asking how they can "give a little" to come to a decision that will permit a win-win outcome for everyone.

Set Up a Structure That Keeps Discussion Orderly

Keeping discussions organized and moving forward is a major task and often the most difficult one you will face. It is sometimes hard to remind participants to pay attention and stay on task. One way to head off these problems is to get your group to agree in advance on the operating rules for meetings. Rules may be as simple as "one speaker or topic at a time" or "everybody gets a chance to speak one time before anybody else speaks a second time on the same issue."

Agreeing on rules ahead of time and deciding what you'll do if people ignore the rules will make it easier for you as chairperson to keep your group on task and your discussion on target. You'll be enforcing the group's rules, not your own.

Set Up Ways To Stick to the Subjects

Too often, meetings run over their time limit because the group tries to do all the work through discussion, when finding the right answer may require some research. The group may get tangled in a conflict between two people who disagree on a topic that is not easily resolved.

A good way to deal with this problem is to move on to other business, agreeing to either leave the subject for a future meeting or have a smaller group (a specific committee) look into the issue. Bring up the idea of using a "parking lot"—some place to acknowledge unresolved issues or additional topics to ensure that they are brought up for later discussion.

Set Up Time To Summarize

Build in time at appropriate points during the meeting and especially at the end of the meeting to very briefly review and summarize what has taken place. If your meeting has dealt with complex or far-ranging topics, this is particularly important.

Building in time to summarize your meeting also affirms commitments others have made to the group and confirms everyone's understanding of decisions, next steps, and assignments of tasks to be completed. For example, stating that "George will reserve the auditorium; Mimi will ask the Mayor to speak; Larry will get approvals from the student council and the principal; and Dave and Jenny will draw up a program and arrange for printing" is a good way to reconfirm people's understanding of their tasks and the group's decisions.

Source: (https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/yb9909-1/mtg-1.html)

4. What are the characteristics of a successful business meeting

Characteristics of a Successful Meeting

In a study conducted by InfoCom, the longer a meeting’s length, surprisingly, the more likely it is deemed to be effective, based on the responses of all those who attend meetings. For meetings one half-hour or less, 58% of respondents indicated they felt they were extremely or very productive. The number jumped to 61% for meetings a half-hour to one hour, 67% for meetings one hour to five hours, and an astounding 80% for 5 hours or more.

Perhaps for meetings of five hours or more, the preparation involved and the mere fact that the group has been sequestered for more than a half business day, helps to increase everyone’s focus.

Begin as Scheduled

Regardless of your meeting’s length, it is necessary for you, as the meeting manager, to steadfastly start meetings on time so that stragglers will realize that they are late and that the others, indeed, arrived as scheduled. This rewards those who have been prompt rather than making them wait around for those who have not been. Organized managers start meetings on time!

Robert Levasseur, in his book Breakthrough Business Meetings, suggests that at the start of any meeting, “participants reach a common understanding of what they’re going to do and how they’re going to do it.” Hence, everyone needs to be present at the start. Levasseur says that this normally takes ten percent of the meeting time, so if you’re going to be meeting for 30 minutes, you only need 3 minutes or so to deal with some basic issues such as:

the main purpose of the meeting,
the participants’ desired outcomes,
the actual agenda itself, and
the key meeting roles, which for smaller groups is understood at the outset.

Tardy Slips

Even after you illustrate how necessary it is to be on-time at your meetings, some individuals may still arrive late. There are several techniques, which work to varying degrees of effectiveness, to encourage promptness:

* require tardy people to apologize to the group. It then becomes their responsibility afterwards to catch up with the group for the parts they missed. Never backtrack for late arrivals, it will only force everyone to stop and wait while the guilty party receives a personalized briefing. * Hand out plum assignments in the first few minutes so that tardy people are left with the least desirable tasks. This is a great incentive for arriving early.

In certain organizations, and this is not my preference, the tardy are the subject of early discussion. In other words, they are the target of gossip, innuendo, and outright jokes. So be late, and be vilified!

Find out what works for your participants, and what steps you are willing to take to encourage promptness. You may quickly catch on that none of these subtle coercions is as effective as pre-interviewing participants, circulating an agenda, and demonstrating on a repeated basis that the meetings start promptly as scheduled.

Agendas as Game Plans

The winning formula for keeping meetings on track involves a strong agenda, organized in the best possible sequence, with estimated time frames for each agenda item. Most participants do their best to honor time frames if they know in advance that a particular item will be allotted five or ten minutes.

Follow the agenda strictly, eliciting the input of others as needed. Encourage the attendees to participate and as each agenda item is discussed, ask participants to keep in mind the following questions: what is the specific issue being discussed, what does the group want to accomplish in discussing the item, and what action needs to be taken to handle the issue?

Schedule meetings around breakfast rather than lunch or dinner. Most people have to get on with their day and hence would be glad to get down to business. Also, some of the topics that emerge in the meeting can be carried out during the course of the day.

Define, Resolve and Keep it Moving

When your group identifies the needed action for a particular issue, key questions include who will act, what resources does he or she require, when will the issue be resolved, and when will the group discuss the results? Upon successful conclusion of these questions, the group then moves on to the next issue, then the next. You will find yourself progressing in a group effort to get things done.

Every question does not always need to be addressed for every issue. Sometimes an agenda item merely represents an announcement or a report to the group that doesn’t require any feedback or discussion. Other times the issue at hand represents an executive briefing, because the matter has already been resolved.

On occasion, unnecessary discussion ensues, and an item ends up requiring twice as much time (if you’re lucky) as originally allotted. Often you will find that participants make up for the overflow in one area by being briefer in other areas.

For those items on the agenda that have a corresponding objective, you have the responsibility to seek out progress towards the objective. What else needs to be accomplished, and by when, to meet the overall objective? As with any goal or objective they need to be written down, quantified, and assigned specific time frames.

Undershoot so you Can Overshoot

As a meeting planner, you know how prudent it is to undershoot the time frames within a meeting. A wise meeting manager may allocate five minutes for a topic that he or she will personally be covering, knowing that it will actually require about three minutes. Hence, several minutes can be saved. Then, if somebody goes over the allotted time frame, then overall the meeting still stays on track and ends on time. What a world.

For a meeting that lasts longer than 30 minutes, schedule a break some time in the middle. Otherwise you’ll lose the attention of participants who are thinking about other extraneous topics. You may also lose the attention of some participants simply whose attention spans have been, shall we say, influenced heavily by mass media today.

Condition Your Meeting’s Environment

The quickest way to lose the participants, other than being an interminable, crashing bore, is to conduct your meeting in a room where the environment can be distracting. This could involve the temperature being too high for participants, or poor ventilation. That, coupled with a dark meeting room, encourages people to fall asleep. Snooze city. It’s an anthropological phenomenon — as soon as it’s dark, the brain gets the message that it’s okay to doze off. A warm, stuffy room only aids the process.

Make sure your meeting room is well lit and has excellent ventilation. If you have a choice between having a room be slightly too warm or slightly too cool, opt for cool. A cool room will keep participants fresh and alert. The discomfort may prompt attendees to complain, but at least no one will go to sleep.

Regardless of where you’re meeting, here are other room organizing techniques:

Meet in a room where participants won’t be disturbed by ringing phones, people knocking on the door, and other intrusions. You want to achieve a meeting of the minds and accomplish great things; distractions do not help.

Meet where there is wall-to-wall carpeting and walls adorned with pictures, posters, curtains, and the like to help absorb sounds and offer a richer texture to the voices being heard.

Contrast this environment with a meeting held on a tile floor, with cold metal chairs, and blank, thin walls. Participants can’t wait for the meeting to be over when the meeting room feels like a holding cell, no matter what’s being discussed.

Meet where the seats are comfortable and support the lumbar region of the back. However, overly comfortable seats may have a detrimental effect and encourage people to nod off.

Source: http://breathingspace.com/characteristics-of-a-successful-meeting/

Characteristics of successful meetings

Many people think meetings are a waste of time -- and sometimes they are right. But you can help increase the productivity of meetings that you schedule and attend.

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Ann Chastain, Michigan State University Extension

Someone once said “the world is run by those that show up to meetings,” but do you think you attend too many meetings? Remember, meetings are expensive activities considering the cost of committing staff time and also how much is actually accomplished during that time.

What kind of meeting are you planning? Staff meetings, planning meetings, problem-solving meetings—all should follow a few basic rules for success.

Who should attend the meeting depends on what you want to accomplish. It’s surprising how many meetings occur without the right people. Ask key people who else should attend. Contact each person about the overall purpose of the meeting and why their attendance is important. Then, follow up with a written notice, including the purpose of the meeting, when and where it will be held, and whom to contact if there are questions. Also include the proposed agenda.

Develop a final agenda together with key participants. Think of the overall outcome for the meeting and organize the agenda so that key discussion really happens. Next to each major topic, include the type of action needed (decision, vote, action or task assigned to someone) and time estimates for each topic. Refer to the agenda throughout the meeting.

Always start on time. This respects those who arrive on time and reminds late-comers that timing is important. Review the agenda at the beginning of the meeting, giving participants a chance to understand and discuss all proposed major topics and add items if necessary. Make sure that minutes are taken and will be shared with each participant shortly after the meeting.

Four powerful ground rules to help ensure successful meetings are:

1. Be prepared for discussion

2. Everyone participates

3. Stick to the agenda

4. Reach closure or consensus whenever possible

One of the most difficult challenges is time management – especially if time is running out before discussion is finished. If the planned discussion time is nearly over, ask the group for their input concerning a resolution. Ask if discussion should continue or if the group should move on to the next topic.

It’s amazing how often people complain about a meeting being a complete waste of time—but say so only after the meeting. Get feedback during the meeting to improve the process right away. If you evaluate a meeting only at the end, it may be too late to make real adjustments needed to accomplish the goals of the meeting.

Be sure to record important actions, assignments and due dates during the meeting and to distribute the information to all participants shortly after the meeting.

Always end meetings on time and on a positive note. Review actions and assignments, the date and time for the next meeting, and ask members if they can attend. Mention that meeting minutes and/or assignments will be sent to members within a week to help keep momentum going. Make it a habit to follow these suggestions for more effective meetings, and to make sure that important work really gets done.

Source: http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/characteristics_of_successful_meetings

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