Hosting a work meeting
You can have great participants at your meeting, but if the meeting itself is not well organized or facilitated, it runs the risk of failing to accomplish anything at all. These kinds of meetings feed into the stereotype that meetings are a waste of everyone’s time. Don’t host a meeting like that! This lesson will teach you about hosting a work meeting.
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to plan, organize and facilitate a meeting that satisfies both your goals and your discerning participants. Download it from the app store below or complete it at the bottom of the page. What follows is what’s in the lesson.
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7 tips for hosting a work meeting
1. Get organized before sending out a meeting invite.
You only get one chance to make a first impression. People are unlikely to value your meeting if you repeatedly have to change details about it after people have agreed to attend.
2. Do you need a meeting?
This seems like an odd step, but it’s crucial if you want to avoid wasting other people’s time.
3. Determine what goal or end result you are trying to achieve with the meeting.
If you can’t give a specific answer, you may not need a meeting.
4. Who do you need?
Look at the goal of the meeting and figure out who you need at the meeting to support and deliver that goal. Start with the stakeholders, the individuals who really, absolutely must be there.
5. Get the timing right.
Pay attention to how people feel throughout day – it could pay off! If the meeting is before 9am, people could still be too tired to participate. A meeting after lunch might have people wanting to fall asleep. Scheduling a meeting to close to 5pm means that everyone is thinking about going home. Find something in-between. Don’t forget about attention spans. Try to aim for an hour or less.
6. Build meeting agenda.
A meeting agenda will provide all of the key information you and your participants need to have a productive meeting. It is always good to send this out to all participants in advance.
7. What would be the best time to hold a meeting?
10:00 am would most likely be the best time to hold a meeting because it’s not too early, not too late, and doesn’t coincide with the typical noon lunch break. However, make sure to schedule a meeting that suits your own particular company’s work schedules and participant needs.
Meeting Details
The agenda should include all of the important logistics for your participants that will answer questions like:
– When is the meeting?
– Where is the meeting?
– Who is hosting the meeting?
– Who is the person taking notes?
– What is the name and purpose of the meeting?
Who’s attending?
This section captures who will be attending the meeting. Including their roles will help others understand who else is involved. This is important because increasing the level of familiarity improves the comfort zone of all participants, making them more likely to engage in discussion. After all, do you want to talk about your work in front of people you don’t even know?
Objectives
The agenda should outline the purpose and goal of the meeting clearly. The goal should be a very specific end result of what you want to achieve. Avoid more than 5 goal items.
Hosting a work meeting: Schedule
Preventing your meeting from going over in time or spending too much time on one topic is the whole purpose of drafting a detailed schedule. As the agenda is viewed by everyone, the expectations are clear on how much time will be allotted to each objective.
A meeting agenda should always include the specific objectives of the meeting.
The most important part of a meeting agenda is those specific objectives – what is the meeting trying to achieve and accomplish? Without these specific goals, the meeting will not accomplish anything.
Facilitating the meeting
While an organized meeting looks great on paper, the guidance and leadership at the actual meeting makes it a reality. Lets look at the role of facilitator and see what needs to be done to ensure a smooth and productive meeting with great outcomes.
**Before you start the meeting**
When hosting a work meeting, the facilitator makes sure that someone is responsible for taking minutes or notes during the meeting. Assign this task before or at the start of the meeting. The minutes should include:
– All relevant meeting details (date, meeting title, etc)
– Attendance information
– The main discussion points per topic
– Deadlines
– Action items (tasks given to participants)
– Decisions
– Any outstanding items
**Provide Guidance**
When hosting a work meeting, a facilitator is the guide. They let participants know at the beginning of the meeting what is to be accomplished. It sets clear expectations of how the meeting will progress. The facilitator can use these expectations to steer the discussion back on topic or move on when time runs out. A facilitator also makes sure that everyone has had a chance to speak, while managing individuals who are dominating the conversation
**Provide Leadership**
Someone still needs to encourage a compromise or agreement on a topic and make final decisions. The facilitator provides this leadership by staying neutral on all topics, avoiding taking sides, and by mediating any conflict. The facilitator reaches the end goal of the meeting by sticking with the agenda one point at a time, ensuring there is consensus for each topic, and making sure that actions items and decisions are agreed to and recorded.
Who is responsible for ensuring that the goals of a meeting are achieved?
The facilitator of the meeting provides the leadership and guidance necessary to see that the meeting’s goals are achieved.
There is not one single person responsible for ensuring that the meeting’s goals are achieved because it will always be achieved with group work.
The note taker of the meeting is responsible for ensuring that goals are met because they are the ones recording all of the information.
The facilitator is responsible for ensuring the goals for the meeting are achieved.
It’s very easy for discussions to go off topic. If nobody is responsible for ensuring that the meeting’s goals are met, the very idea that it should happen might be forgotten.
There is not one single person responsible for ensuring that the meeting’s goals are achieved because it will always be achieved with group work.
The note taker of the meeting is responsible for ensuring that goals are met because they are the ones recording all of the information.
The facilitator is responsible for ensuring the goals for the meeting are achieved.
It’s very easy for discussions to go off topic when hosting a work meeting. If nobody is responsible for ensuring that the meeting’s goals are met, the very idea that it should happen might be forgotten.
You may be interested in our new course, “How to attend and host meetings“, accessible from our content library with this link, https://www.edapp.com/course/how-to-attend-and-host-meetings.
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Author
Guest Author Daniel Brown
Daniel Brown is a senior technical editor and writer that has worked in the education and technology sectors for two decades. Their background experience includes curriculum development and course book creation.