Learn to hold meetings

If meetings among your colleagues or subordinates turn into a farce, it means it's time to take drastic measures ...

I do not provide a universal recipe, because it is not, I will not go into the smallest subtleties - because they can be listed to infinity, I just describe my vision of this issue ...

For myself, I divide the meeting into several types (the notes are not strictly tied to the type):

1. “Five minutes” - i.e. This is a scheduled meeting, many consider them useless, but they help maintain discipline.
   

   
   

   • Start the meeting always on time - we need the discipline
   • Hold a meeting while standing - in this way, a five-minute session will not turn into a couple of hours of heated debate (often off topic)
   • Try not to raise issues that are resolved in working order, without involving all participants in the meeting (time is money)
   • Follow the rules of decency - coffee beating, yawning, or obvious ostentatious indifference - does not contribute to fruitful communication

2. Pre-scheduled meeting to discuss any issues / dilemmas / ... lemmm
   

   • Determine the purpose of your meeting - without a goal - the meeting to become a Brownian communication movement.
   • Send out an agenda to all participants - try to avoid generalized vague phrases - more specifics
   • If you have material to study - it is also better to provide it in advance - otherwise your meeting will turn into a reading room.
   • Determine the time and place of the meeting - the earlier the participants learn about their participation the better - after all, not only you can have plans
   • If discussion of several questions is supposed - limit each of them on time
   • Avoid crossing the time of the meeting with a lunch break or with the end of the working day - otherwise the meeting will be similar to the last couple in the institute - everyone is waiting for the end of this action, absolutely not delving into the essence of what is happening
   • If the meeting drags on for a couple of hours - schedule breaks - after all, we are all human, we are all human.
   • Determine the list of participants — if there are more than 20 people — it is probably better to reduce it (it is worth trying Japanese New Mawashi — that is, small group meetings are held first, then representatives of the groups participate in the main meeting) —the more people - the greater the likelihood of uncontrollable discussions between participants
   • Record the results achieved (keep a record of the so-called “meeting minutes”) - otherwise there is no point in the meeting itself.
   • Upon completion - announce “total” so that all participants understand whether you have reached the finish
   • Do not delay the meeting - finish at a strictly agreed time, questions remain - assign a new one
   • After an hour of meeting - the probability of getting a result will tend to zero.

3. Training - i.e. conference format - there is a speaker (s), and he sets the tone for the meeting
   

   • You, as a speaker, should draw up a plan for the upcoming meeting - so as not to get away from the point
   • Rehearse your report if you are speaking with it for the first time.
   • Prepare visual material for the report - for once it’s still better to see than a hundred times to hear ( harmful advice from the “self-proclaimed”)
   • Prepare handouts - only your meeting plan can be written in it, but the marks left on the margins of such material can sometimes prove invaluable, and they will always help refresh your memory.

4. “Brainstorming” - a rather specific type of meetings, aimed at solving a non-trivial task
   

   • Announce to the participants only the topic of discussion, do not go into details, it is precisely the assault that is needed, not a looping on finding the “very-most” solution
   • Get ready to record all the thoughts expressed by the participants.
   • Never criticize the proposed solutions (and stop this from colleagues)

5. "Neither fish nor meat" - spontaneous meetings ala in the smoking room, for coffee, begin with the phrase - "Oh, how good that you are all here, I have long wanted to discuss with you ..."
   

   • Rarely constructive, and relevant to them
   • Does not bind participants to anything - i.e. what would you decide - it will not be taken as a guide to action
   • Sometimes they have the effect of “brainstorming” - for which they are loved - it didn’t seem to work, but something was decided (the main thing - then not to forget what exactly was decided)

   
   

And now let us return to the farce that the ardent debaters are arranging, in order to appease them we will need to draw up rules of conduct at meetings and adhere to them (as well as force others to follow the rules):
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1. No one, and under no circumstances interrupts the performance
   
   • If a question arises - raise your hand
   • If there are more and more of them, we take a pen and write it down in a notebook (how do you not have it? Why did you come here?)
2. The speaker ends his speech with a control phrase or a word (for example, dixi (lat.) - "I said")
3. After the end of the report, everyone will ask questions.
4. The “queue” of questions should be monitored by either the “arbitrator” appointed in advance, or the speaker himself.
5. Perhaps you should accept the conditions under which the speaker interrupts his speech - for example, all those present want to ask questions.
6. Perhaps you should apply a trick called a “speaker ball” - i.e. only the one who has the ball in his hands speaks

And one more piece of advice: use organizers - they are good now in almost every phone (PDA), and synchronization with a computer takes less than a minute - but your device is always with you and it will always remind you that they are waiting for you somewhere. And if you and all your colleagues use Outlook, then you can easily inform them about the meeting and relevant information will fall into their organizers (see http://office.microsoft.com/ru-ru/outlook/HA012293681049.aspx# 2 ).

Related Links:

• http://www.elitarium.ru/2007/10/12/provedenie_soveshhanija.html
• http://www.stepconsulting.ru/publ/3.shtml
• http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/columns/4521/