The Most Important Aspect of planning any Meeting is understanding the Session Objective. “What do we want to have accomplished by the end of this meeting to consider it a success?”

The Session Objective is the “Why” you are having the Meeting…it is your destination.

The Agenda is the “HOW”… the map to get there

One of the biggest challenges to Meeting Effectiveness is we are essentially Creatures of Habit. We do things this way because we have always done things this way … pure and simple.

• In many cases routine meetings are run purely out of Habit and have no clear Session Objective.
• Or if they do have a Session Objective … you don’t need a meeting to accomplish it.

In the average weekly staff meeting for instance - the agenda is often made up of routine standing items. These Agenda Items have always been there and no one has a legitimate reason when you ask the question, “Why?”.

You can create a radical improvement in the quality of these standing meetings by looking at each Agenda Item separately and establishing its Agenda Item Objective. You sit down and examine the Session Objective for each item on the Agenda. It looks like this …For each and every item on the agenda

1) Identify the Item Objective … is it
- information sharing
- keeping the team updated on project progress
- brainstorming a list of possibilities
- making a decision

2) Ask the question,”Is having a meeting of the whole team the best method of accomplishing this Item Objective?” Meetings are best for the higher level functions of a team. Things like:

• Brainstorming solutions to challenges
• Action planning and dividing roles and responsibilities
• Making collective decisions

I strongly suggest you do not use valuable meeting time for plain vanilla updates and information sharing … ESPECIALLY in interminable PowerPoint slide shows where you read them out loud with your back to the Team. Updates and information sharing do not require a meeting setting. You can update the team with reports, email, memos, voice mail … and leave the meetings free for those higher level activities above.

3) If the item does not require a Meeting …. FIND ANOTHER WAY TO GET IT DONE… e-mail perhaps. When you look carefully, you might find agenda items and even whole meetings you simply don’ t need any more …. cancel them.

4) For all items that do make it into the next meeting, clearly identify the objective for each one so that everyone knows the “Why” at all times. Write that item’s objective next to the item’s title on the agenda . It might look something like this.

10:00 - 10:15 Ron on the x project - Update and Action Planning
10:15 - 10:30 Jim re: the new lounge pop machine - Decision
10:30 - 10:45 Sheila on rideshare options - Brainstorming

Try this out in your next routine meeting and see the difference
it makes in your effectiveness and use of time.

Tagged as: facilitation, leadership, management, meetings, session objective