Successful Meeting Management

• Schedule meetings in advance. Don't expect those that you want to meet with to be available on a moment's notice. Give people as much time as possible so that your meeting will be as productive as possible. Provide a reminder to the meeting invitees.
• Do not wait for everyone to be present before beginning the discussion. Latecomers will soon learn that they need to be on time not only to ensure a productive meeting but to respect and recognize that others' time is as valuable as theirs. Talk to chronic latecomers outside the meeting, one on one, to determine why they are not able to be on time and come up with a solution together.
• Provide participants with ample time to prepare the information needed. If input is needed from a participant, make sure that is clear. Make sure that you are prepared with necessary documentation and information as well. Unpreparedness is one of the main reasons that meetings go awry.
• Identify the start and end time of the meeting. End times can be used to keep attendees focused and to keep wasted time to a minimum. Make sure that you honor a meeting's end time just as you do the start time.

• Prepare and distribute a meeting agenda. Identify the discussion topics with timeframes. Assure that the order of the topics makes sense and is logical. More often than not, the second item on the agenda will take up the majority of meeting time so; if possible, this is a good place to schedule the most important topic.
• Review the agenda before discussion begins on the first topic. Accommodate changes if possible or suggest that any additional topics brought forward be addressed in another forum, at another time. Also ask that participants be respectful and give their full attention to the meeting.
• As much as possible adhere to the individual topic timeframes identified on the agenda. In recurring meetings quite often the same topics are discussed during each meeting. If time runs out before the latter items on the agenda are addressed, put those items at the top of the next meeting agenda. If more discussion is needed on a specific topic, schedule a separate meeting for that topic alone or agree on another way to address it.

• Provide opportunities for all participants to contribute. Be especially alert to anyone that is voicing an unpopular or different view on the subject. Understanding and addressing the minority or dissenting opinion is important to making sound decisions.
• Do not allow meetings to become the only method of communicating between participants. Encourage communication between participants outside of the meeting and to ensure progress is made on critical items.
• Have one of the participants take notes/minutes. Identify action items, the responsible parties and the completion date. Review these action items at the end of the meeting to be sure that there is agreement and understanding among the participants. For recurring meetings, include these action items on the next agenda and note their status. Make the meeting notes available to all participants.
• Encourage the meeting participants to provide feedback on any improvements to make the meeting more productive.

• Model the behavior that you ask of your meeting participants (be on time and prepared, give your full attention, etc.)
• If you are unable to attend a meeting that you intended to, delegate attendance to one of your team members as a way to raise their visibility and as a development tool.
• Provide feedback to the meeting organizer on discussion items and any other relevant issues.