5 Ways To Conduct An Effective Meeting

The rate of growth of a company holds very high importance in business improvement. In fact, meetings serve as an important part, which contributes to that growth. It is important to realize that the aim of conducting an effective meeting is to assemble and engage the employees to address an issue and discern solutions.

In a Lean Six Sigma environment, meetings occur explicitly under the guidance of a facilitator, preferably a Master Black Belt, who has an eye for details. As a result, such an environment allows employees to be a part of the change.

Why Do Meetings Fail?

On the negative side, we are utterly aware of how some meetings fail as there is no solid outcome at the end. What are those reasons that we end up having unproductive meetings? Let’s find out:

1. The facilitator’s incapability to handle discussions or heated arguments between participants due to a conflict of ideas is clearly a sign of meeting mismanagement.

2. Next, a poor agenda can affect the entire meeting as it lacks substantial points to discuss, which causes a meeting to fail.

3. Also, the effect of wrong delegation and inappropriate assignment of roles and responsibilities in a meeting can be detrimental and bring inefficient results.

It’s the details that certainly matter, and some facilitators do not pay much attention to such minute details, which can result in an unproductive meeting. Although this may be true how do we jump over those typical mistakes and land on a highly functioning quality-driven meeting?

Ways To Have A Constructive Meeting

Here are 5 ways to avoid such grievous mistakes in the future and have an extremely effective meeting:

1. Agenda

It is a good practice to have the meeting agenda ready a day before the meeting for everyone to go through it. This way everyone is aware and ready for a healthy meeting. The purpose of sharing this agenda is to familiarize the participants with the goals of the meeting.

2. Icebreaker

To ease up the tension among participants, having a small icebreaker would enable participants to engage with each other. A good icebreaker might have the participants introduce themselves to each other.

3. Time

Keep a constraint on time and allow each participant to provide their suggestions. It’s important for the facilitator to not go off-topic, which can result in having little time left in the meeting to discuss other important topics.

4. Stand-up Meetings

In some companies, meetings take place while participants stand. These are called “stand-up meetings” and the objective of such meetings is to wrap up the meeting quickly, covering each topic mentioned in the agenda.

5. Plan of Action

Lastly, the meeting should end up with an effective plan of action for a set period of time, usually over the course of the next several days.

In an ideal meeting, every participant’s idea is heard and the decision is made by consensus. Besides, a good meeting should enable good brainstorming and keep participants motivated.