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Guidelines: Conducting Effective and Efficient Meetings
When meeting to complete a SWOT Analysis or to conduct other business, the most productive
meetings are those that are run effectively and efficiently. Below are some universal tips to help
any meeting run more smoothly.
1. Distribute the agenda prior to the meeting. Define the purpose of the meeting, list the
agenda items and time allotments, and include any reference materials that should be
reviewed prior to the meeting.
2. Write the agenda and meeting goals on a blackboard or flipchart in the meeting room.
This will help keep the team members focused on the tasks at hand. Follow the agenda,
start on time and end on time.
3. Your meeting should have a facilitator, either the meeting leader or another designated
individual. The role of the facilitator is to keep the discussion focused on the topic, stay
on the agenda, and stay on time. It would be very easy for a meeting on workforce
planning to turn into a meeting with participants discussing everything about the
organization. The facilitator controls the meeting by establishing time limits, listing
specific agenda items, defining the purpose of the meeting, and controlling the
discussions.
4. Make introductions, have team members introduce themselves and tell where they work
or what they do.
5. Use a warm-up activity, sometimes called an icebreaker. This activity serves two
purposes: 1) it promotes participation and communication; and 2) it encourages team
work and team building.
6. Have the team members develop and agree upon meeting ground rules. These
agreements establish norms for participant behavior and define how the meeting will be
conducted.
7. Encourage participation from all team members and ensure that no one team member
dominates the discussion. Brainstorming can be used to generate ideas, remember that
during brainstorming ideas should not be evaluated or criticized.
8. Determine how decisions will be made. There are a number of methods to make
decisions ranging from voting to building consensus. A majority vote decision method
requires support from more than 50% of the members of the group and can be
accomplished through voting, either by a show of hands or written secret ballot. The
following prioritization techniques can also be used to arrive at the option that the
majority supports:
Give each person in the group five sticky dots and have them place the dots beside
the options they prefer. They can choose five individual options or place multiple dots
on an option they feel strongly about. The option with the greatest number of dots will
determine the course of action.
Participants are asked to rank the options using a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 points
represents their first choice, 4 their second choice, etc. The desired option is the one
that accumulates the highest total score.