Organise a work meeting: 9 things to know

Organise a work meeting: 9 things to know

Organ­is­ing a work meet­ing involves care­ful plan­ning to ensure it runs smooth­ly and all key mes­sages are clear. Choos­ing the atten­dees, set­ting the goals, using the right mate­ri­als, book­ing an appro­pri­ate room, online or in per­son…? There are many ele­ments to con­sid­er when organ­is­ing a meet­ing.

In this arti­cle, we share the 9 essen­tial steps to help you organ­ise the meet­ing.

Sum­ma­ry


    1. Define the purpose of the meeting

    Define pre­cise­ly the goals of your meet­ing and the expect­ed out­comes.

    You can con­sid­er dif­fer­ent types of meet­ings depend­ing on the top­ic, the desired out­comes and the envi­ron­ment in which the meet­ing is to be held:

    • Infor­ma­tion meet­ings: The pur­pose of this type of meet­ing is to com­mu­ni­cate one or more mes­sages to the audi­ence (progress of an order, feed­back from a client, dates of an upcom­ing event, etc.).
    • Exchange meet­ings: These are more for­mal meet­ings held peri­od­i­cal­ly in project man­age­ment, in which all par­ties active­ly par­tic­i­pate to assess whether the project is pro­gress­ing well.
    • Emer­gency meet­ings: The aim is to find a way to solve a prob­lem, man­age a dis­agree­ment or break a dead­lock. They can also be organ­ised to announce impor­tant changes.
    • Strate­gic meet­ings: They con­sist of mak­ing strate­gic deci­sions for the com­pa­ny (piv­ot­ing, launch­ing a new prod­uct or ser­vice, hir­ing staff, defin­ing the annu­al bud­get, etc.).

    2. Invite the right people

    Once the objec­tive has been defined, iden­ti­fy and invite peo­ple with a role to play in the meet­ing and whose posi­tion is rel­e­vant to the dis­cus­sion. It is also essen­tial to make sure that those invit­ed are avail­able. Hence the next point: the choice of the date and time of the meet­ing.

    3. Set the right date and time

    Once the atten­dees have been iden­ti­fied, it is essen­tial to set the date and time of the meet­ing. Of course, ensure that the meet­ing does not coin­cide with oth­er impor­tant events.

    As the meet­ing organ­is­er, you will prob­a­bly have access to the guests’ agen­das. Depend­ing on the type of meet­ing, choose an appro­pri­ate. For exam­ple, sched­ule a meet­ing at 9 a.m. on Mon­day morn­ing if it is urgent. If you don’t have access to the agen­das of the meet­ing atten­dees, do a quick sur­vey to define the time that best suits every­one.

    Final­ly, don’t for­get to send reminders to atten­dees before the meet­ing to remind them of the date, time and place, as well as the top­ics to be dis­cussed.

    4. Online or in person?

    Anoth­er crit­i­cal point is to choose the venue for the meet­ing.

    If it is a face-to-face meet­ing, the venue should be large enough to accom­mo­date all atten­dees and equipped with every­thing nec­es­sary (pro­jec­tor, white­board, etc.). Opt for face-to-face meet­ings for strate­gic meet­ings, for exam­ple.

    If you decide to hold the meet­ing online, don’t for­get to attach the link to the meet­ing to your invi­ta­tion so that every­one can par­tic­i­pate. Remote meet­ings offer great flex­i­bil­i­ty to employ­ees and are pre­ferred for week­ly updates or small­er meet­ings. Final­ly, you can also use online tools to organ­ise webi­na­rs, whether open to the pub­lic or for your team, to present the lat­est bal­ance sheet, for exam­ple.

    5. Request confirmation of attendance

    A few days before the meet­ing or after send­ing out the invi­ta­tions, ask for con­fir­ma­tion of the pres­ence of each par­tic­i­pant. If it is a week­ly or month­ly meet­ing, try to keep the same place and time. This will make your work much more man­age­able.

    6. Prepare an agenda

    Before each meet­ing, pre­pare a detailed agen­da. This should include the issues to be dis­cussed, the pre­sen­ta­tions to be made, and the deci­sions to be tak­en. It is also essen­tial to allow suf­fi­cient time to dis­cuss each top­ic and enable par­tic­i­pants to ask ques­tions and com­ment. You can also assign dif­fer­ent respon­si­bil­i­ties to each per­son so they have time to pre­pare.

    7. Communicate with participants beforehand

    Pre­pare the nec­es­sary doc­u­ments to share with par­tic­i­pants. Before the meet­ing, ensure you share all rel­e­vant and help­ful infor­ma­tion with the par­tic­i­pants: doc­u­ments to print, PDFs to down­load, videos to present, etc.

    8. Report and follow up on the next steps

    At the end of the meet­ing, draft min­utes sum­maris­ing the issues dis­cussed, deci­sions made, and tasks assigned. These min­utes should be sent to the par­tic­i­pants for their review.

    9. Ask your team for feedback

    To get con­struc­tive feed­back on the meet­ing and see what worked and what did­n’t, ask par­tic­i­pants to give their opin­ion on the agen­da, the dura­tion, the venue, etc. This will help to improve future meet­ings.

    Hint: read our arti­cle on col­lect­ing feed­back after an event.

    Conclusion

    In con­clu­sion, organ­is­ing an effec­tive work meet­ing requires care­ful plan­ning, clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion and con­tin­u­ous eval­u­a­tion to ensure that objec­tives are met. Cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment where all par­tic­i­pants feel com­fort­able shar­ing their ideas and col­lab­o­rat­ing is essen­tial. The type and for­mat of the meet­ing should be defined in advance to ensure that it runs smooth­ly.


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