How to Conduct a Productive Business Meeting

Having regular business meetings is essential in operating a successful business. If the meetings are not productive, everyone can end up feeling their time was wasted. A business that operates smoothly and has few miscommunication problems are signs that the meetings are being successfully utilized as a key element of running the business.

Things You'll Need

• Outline and copies for everyone
• Office memo or email
• Meeting plan
• Meeting room
• Notepad and pen

Instructions

1. Notify everyone with plenty of advanced warning of an upcoming meeting. About a week in advance is usually ideal.

2. Plan an agenda covering three to five main topics. Try to set a time frame of 30 minutes or less, and stick to it. If meetings are running longer, that's a signal that you aren't meeting often enough.

3. Involve your key leaders in planning for the meeting. Find out if they have any issues that need to be discussed and integrate them into your meeting plan. Print out a bullet point outline of what is going to be discussed in the meeting and make enough copies to hand out to everyone attending the meeting.

4. Send a reminder early on the day of the meeting. If your office uses a program like Microsoft Outlook, it should automatically put it on the calendar and send a reminder.

5. Start the meeting promptly at the time appointed. Give a summary of what is going to be talked about and briefly go over the points of the meeting. It might be helpful to have a designated person take notes.

6. Leave room at the end for questions or to discuss any other issues people may have. If there are issues that come up that may take more time, set up a separate group or one on one meeting so that this meeting doesn't drag out past the scheduled time.

7. Deliver a summary through email or an office memo shortly after the meeting. Review the most important points of the meeting and any decisions that were made.

Tips & Warnings

• Have the meetings scheduled at the same time every week or on a consistent pattern. This gets people used to the meetings and they know if they have an issue to discuss, they can always bring it up at the regular meeting.

• Do not send out meeting notifications too early or too late. If they are too far in advance, people may forget about the meeting and fail to prepare for them properly. If they are too late then you run into the same problem.

• Never veer too far from the outline. Address any questions or concerns but do not get sucked into a "beating the dead horse" as it is not productive.

Resources

• Find office meeting information at Office MeeFind office meeting information at Office Meeting.