Effective Management and Facilitation of Meetings

Meetings are an essential part of business and may take any number of forms; such as a training meeting, problem solving or decision making meeting, project kick off meeting, or an information gathering meeting. Too often managers hear of complaints of too many meetings with little being accomplished, taking individuals away from their work for what appears to be a waste of time and resources. When meetings are poorly planned, unfocused and not well facilitated, they are unproductive and a waste of resources, time and energy.

Meetings are necessary however! We need to hold meetings to solicit other’s points of view on an issue, generate ideas for a new product or service, enable for cross-functional collaboration or for more effective problem solving and decision making.

The ability to effectively and efficiently manage and facilitate meetings is an essential skill for any level manager and leader. This one day workshop provides attendees with best practices for facilitating and managing effective meetings.

Participants will take a survey at the start of class to gauge understanding of what makes for productive meetings.

Through a variety of mini case studies, discussions, and pre-planning for an upcoming meeting participants will need to facilitate, attendees in this one day workshop walk away with the skills, knowledge, tools and best practices to better manage meetings regardless of the purpose.

Participants are provided a participant guide to utilize in the workshop and as a reference tool after the workshop along with editable templates to use in meeting planning and facilitation. Participants are welcome to bring information about an upcoming complex or strategic meeting in order to begin planning as part of the activities of the class.

Any level manager, leader or project lead who:

• needs to get control over their meetings to increase productivity
• is interested in learning how to better facilitate meetings to ensure a successful outcome
• has a number of projects or initiatives to lead and needs to hold meetings in order to get goals accomplished
• wants to learn how to better run meetings in order to get problems solved and decisions made
• is interested in learning how to engage meeting participants to meet objectives
• wants to learn best practices for managing meetings, regardless of the meeting purpose

• Determining the need for a meeting
• Coordinating and preparing for meetings
• Developing detailed, timed agendas
• Getting the right participants at the meeting and getting them engaged
• The importance of ground rules
• Using a variety of activities to kick off working meetings
• Best practices for facilitating meetings
• Time management for meeting leaders
• The meeting leader’s role and the role of participants
• Special roles for meeting participants (sharing the leadership role)
• Roles and responsibilities of meeting participants/delegating tasks
• Keeping remote participants engaged
• Presenting information, gathering information, and ensuring participation
• Addressing conflicts during the meeting
• Best practices for facilitating brainstorming and problem solving meetings
• Building consensus and driving decision making
• Using action logs effectively
• Concluding the meeting and meeting evaluation

Action planning is utilized in this workshop. Participants will complete an action plan on how they will apply the skills and knowledge they learn in the workshop back on the job.