Importance of careful meeting design | Managing Leadership

Making your meeting

Let’s presume that you have determined at this point that your meeting is exactly the right step to take at the right time, and that you’ve successfully marketed it to the key attendees whose participation is vital to its success. But you still have what the software industry used to call “airware” - something you’ve sold, but not yet created. So, it’s time to get busy with that.

And while you do, please bear closely in mind that everything you design into the meeting should contribute to its accomplishment of its goals, and nothing should be put in, or be allowed to intrude, that will impede that. Unfortunately, many meetings are hi-jacked by ill-conceived design elements, agenda items, or even invitations - and others by unforeseen influences that are generated either within the meeting, or that insinuate their way into it from outside.

Try to anticipate potential external elements like these, and to develop measures to exclude or ameliorate them. Definitely hold a walk-through at the place and time of day - even the same day of the week, if possible - of the actual meeting schedule in order to identify any regular environmental events that might negatively affect it, such as lighting or noise. And, obviously, practice using any technology involved to ensure you are familiar with it and that the bugs are worked out of the devices.

As for the internal elements, the common admonition to begin with the end in mind is of special importance here. Be ruthless: discipline the meeting’s form to its substance. Meetings are a classic venue for mistaking the former for the latter; many people think that they must have the glossiest pre-meeting readers or meeting handouts, the most elaborately prepared presentation material, or the shiniest audio-visual presentation software and hardware.

This is nonsense. You will undoubtedly recall some of the best meetings you’ve attended that took a spare and utilitarian approach to all of these, focusing instead on content and results. Similarly, you will remember others that were so awful that the glitzy surface effects simply made the failure even more stark. Incorporate only what supports your meeting goals; leave everything else out. All steak, no sizzle.

Meeting preparation is a large topic that admits of a great range of specific procedures depending on the type of meeting you are hosting and the organizational context in which it is being held. You absolutely should take the trouble to negotiate it, and to try to avoid plunging heedlessly and unprepared into subsequent stages. Note at the least that the preparation phase is a close second only to the conception phase in the overall success of your meeting. It is more critical than marketing, and even more important, as so often, than the fun part: execution.

Get it right. A well conceived and designed meeting, like a similarly constructed business, can often survive poor management. But, of course, that’s no excuse for bad management, either. We’ll take a look at that, tomorrow.

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Be sure not to miss any of the posts in this series!

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Today’s tip: Speaking of alternatives to meetings, many champion venues for collaboration offered by corporate intranets, or by the wider internet. But there is a downside to everything; see this WSJ item for a description of how some people are learning to fight off the growing swarms of email - even non-spam email.

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