Every bad meeting has a consistent theme, and meetings that never ended, ones not focused on any particular subject, and meetings plagued by constant interruptions can foil any attempt to convene with employees or colleagues. Moreover, holding the interest of your audience, especially if the topic is dry or boring, can make conveying any message difficult for facilitators. However, today’s office tools can make holding a meeting and delivering any messages much easier for professionals.
A good meeting takes planning, but a perfect meeting takes both planning and skillful implementation. A well-planned meeting captures the attention of the audience while conveying any intended messages. Furthermore, a perfect meeting is an efficient one.
Let’s take a look at some useful tips on how you can run a meeting effectively and efficiently.
Finding Appropriate Facilities
Good meetings begin in a location that is conducive for business. Furthermore, good meeting rooms have the necessary technologies. Finally, great meeting rooms make sure that there is enough comfortable seating for those attending.
Conference and meeting rooms are standard places meetings should be held simply because they have video-conferencing technologies and smart stations, which combine computer technology with an overhead projection, and audio and video capabilities. For the most part, facilitators can maximize the use of these tools toward their advantage to help engage listeners. Visit our Servcorp site to see the various amenities that usually come with professional-grade meeting rooms.
Give Advanced Notice And Reminders
Make sure to give your team members advanced notice the meeting. The amount of time you should wait between making the announcement and the actual meeting varies depending on your company and the industry. Moreover, do not just send out announcements, but the closer you get to the date remind attendees of the event.
Create An Agenda
To keep the meeting organized and focused, be sure to include an agenda for participants. An agenda not only tells meeting members of the various topics discussed, but it also reins in any tangential conversations that might change the meeting’s direction. To maximize the potential of your agenda, send out a draft, so participants can make suggestions, and just before your meeting, send out a final draft for people to review.
During the meeting, keep track of time by allotting a few minutes for each topic. Furthermore, when in the meeting, table questions until the end. In this way, you avoid spending more time on one topic, and it prevents tangential conversations.
Open With An Icebreaker
The second part of holding great meetings is finding ways to pull your audience into the discussion. Often, participants arrive at the meeting first thing in the morning, and worse yet, have a meeting right after lunch. In either case, we are tired and exhausted and the last thing we want to pay attention to are directives from our supervisors. You can pull your participants in by using an icebreaker to wake everyone up. Whether it is simply introducing yourself or using some other fun activity, icebreakers make people more comfortable in their environment.
Engage Your Audience
During the meeting, get people to move around and participate in the meeting by including cooperative activities that help illustrate any concepts discussed in the meeting. These activities will help participants actively engage with the facilitator and the topic. The difference in a meeting where the speaker imparts ideas to participants definitely changes when participants are asked to be actively engaged in the conversation.
The Perfect Meeting In Five Steps
The tone and tempo of your meeting will depend on how much you prepare and how much participation you want from team members. Furthermore, engaging participants can spark up any discussion because it gives the audience a chance to ask questions, to make suggestions, and to gain from the entire experience. Ultimately, though, a well-planned meeting is one that reflects professionalism and is appreciated by team members.
