How to run an effective meeting.

I fear that some of this might be stating the bleeding obvious but in my time I've been to way more frustratingly unproductive meetings than effective ones. Here are my 7 top tips for making meetings really useful ...

• Write an agenda and a clear objective for the meeting. Ensure that your agenda is timed (more or less) and that the agenda points will be able to deliver on your objectives.

• Circulate to all participants (they should all have a clear role to play in attending) at least 24 hours before the meeting. If people aren’t clear what the purpose of the meeting is, it can easily steer off course. Write the objectives up and pin them up in the meeting - it serves as a visual reminder and if you steer off course you can visually direct people back to the objectives.

• At the beginning of the meeting repeat the objective and the desired outcome.

• Ensure someone is nominated as the note taker (and knows how to write meeting notes).

• If you are running the meeting be confident and keep to the agenda. People’s time is precious so you want to ensure that you get the most out of the meeting. If it starts to go off track capture the point being made and then suggest that it is discussed at a later time.

• Always conclude your meeting by summarising any action points/next steps that were agreed, with a time frame against each point. Check that the objective of the meeting has been met.

• Circulate key points & agreed action points within 24 hrs. (Keep it brief; it is a summary not a full transcript).