Managing Meetings
‘Meetings’ are the most common and visible activity in any organization. Almost every task is identified, debated, planned, executed, tracked and improved through meetings. It doesn’t matter if the meeting is of two individuals or a large group. They are all pervasive. In my experience, there are only two kinds of meetings – productive and non-productive. The latter type has the maximum share!! Productive meetings are fewer and amongst these; ‘productive and efficient’ are an even rarer lot. This may sound an extreme or cynical view. However there is enough data and anecdotal evidence to prove that ‘most meetings are managed poorly and are often unproductive’. Again, there are enough guidelines and recommendation for managing meetings better, such as –circulating agenda in advance, controlling the participation to the most relevant/essential members, assigning roles, having a timer, focusing on action items, circulating the meeting notes soon after the meeting and many others. Seve...