Making Every Meeting Matter

Overview

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Course Description

Everyone has hosted or attended meetings that took more time and accomplished less than expected. Vague agendas, missing critical participants, off-track conversations, tuned-out participants, and lack of follow up affect virtually every organization. This class provides participants with the processes, tools, and perspectives to help improve the effectiveness of meetings that ensure the right people with the right agenda can engage in focused and collaborative conversations to accomplish their personal, departmental, and organizational goals. The class is very hands on: participants engage in numerous exercises around planning and running great meetings. Topics include:  

• Communicate the meeting purpose
• Invite the right people
• Create an achievable and targeted objective
• Facilitate and moderate beneficial discussions
• Control unproductive conversations 
• Create realistic action items

Prerequisites

This course has no prerequisites 

Course Outline

Lesson 1: Prepare

• Meeting or No Meeting: Decision Tools
• Conversations Versus Meetings
• SMART Objectives for Meetings
• Agenda Design Best Practices
• Shorter, Smarter Meetings
• 50-Minute Meetings
• 30-Minute Meetings
• Timing of Agenda Items
• Balance Not Enough Versus Too Many Attendees

Lesson 2: Conduct 

• Inform Attendees: Silence Denotes Agreement
• Establish Ground Rules
• Reaching Group Decisions
• Tactfully Cutting People Off
• Tactics for People Who Derail Meetings
• Refocusing After Interruptions 

Lesson 3: Participate

• Tactfully Declining a Meeting
• Interjecting Appropriately
• Stuck in a Terrible Meeting?
• Methods to End Wandering Meetings
• Helping Your Supervisor Run More Effective Meetings

Lesson 4: Close and Follow Up

• The right way to End a Meeting
• The Required 3 Items to Close a Meeting

Lesson 5: Specific Types of Meetings

• Running Virtual Meetings
• Running Multicultural Meetings
• Running Multiple Time Zone Meeting
• Running Standup Meetings
• Conducting Walking Meetings

Checklists

• Meeting Preparation Checklists
• Sample Agendas
• Follow up Checklists
• Follow up Memos
• Digital Tools