Meetings - Do you know the way meetings should work?

Office meetings often are ineffective, because:

• There is a lot of discussion but no resulting "action items"
• Time is wasted digressing to unrelated topics
• People forget the meeting is on and do not attend
• People turn up late with no notice

To ensure your meetings are productive and successful, you should:

• Make sure all the presentation setup is working. (Please refer to the SugarLearning item 'AV Setup for Meetings').
• Create a meeting agenda prior to the meeting. If the discussion strays from the topic, the agenda will help you keep it on track.
• Send an appointment to all meeting attendees to ensure the meeting appears on their calendar. Include the agenda.
• If you are going to be late, contact the organizer or the person in charge of the meeting to let them know that you are running late and what time you will be arriving.
• To improve future meetings, at the end of the meeting, do a quick debrief to see how long the meeting took, if anything was covered that didn't need to be, etc.

Meeting appointments must have:

1. A good subject, to let attendees know the purpose of the meeting, as per Do you realize the importance of a good email Subject?
2. Details of the location, including full address and a link for directions/maps

3. The message itself should contain:

   • Agenda - All the points to be discussed (The final step in the agenda being "Set a date for the next meeting")
   • A note mentioning if the meeting is billable or not
   • Standard signature (as in email messages)
   • (optional) A URL mentioning Rules to Better Software Consultants - Dealing with Clients