Ichijo's Journal: The Seven Sins of Deadly Meetings

Here's an old article (but I just found it) about holding effective meetings:

The Seven Sins of Deadly Meetings

I thought the article was interesting because the author seems to advocate the use of technology in meetings to help make them more productive and encourage more ideas and other feedback. Also, a lot of his points hit home because my own team has problems holding effective meetings.

The following are my own notes from a CBT training course about holding effective meetings:

The 5 P's of Preparing a Meeting
(These should be part of the meeting request.)

1. Establish a Purpose
2. • "What do we want at the end of this meeting that we don't have now?"
3. Manage People
4. • Leading - managing the content/information
   • Facilitating - moving the meeting through the agenda items, managing the people
   • Recording - recording the key points of the meeting, producing the minutes after the meeting
5. List Prerequisites
6. • What to do before the meeting?
   • What to bring with you to the meeting?
7. Organize Practicalities
8. • Length of the meeting
   • Time of the meeting
   • Gather equipment, remove distractions
9. Create Points (Agenda Items)
10. • Inform (what, how, whom, how long)
    • Discuss (...)
    • Decide (...)
    • Act (...)

OPEN Technique of opening a meeting

1. Orientate everyone
2. Present the purpose
3. Establish the agenda items
4. Nominate roles and rules

CLOSE Technique of closing a meeting

1. Call a halt
2. List the outcomes
3. Obtain commitment for assignments
4. Set up the next meeting
5. Express appreciation