David L' Sturges, Ph'D'

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Effective Meetings

• David L. Sturges, Ph.D.

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Successful Meetings

• Clear realistic outcomes
• Well-designed agenda
• Right people, right meeting
• Clear ground rules and roles
• Prepared participants
• Few relevant tangents
• Individual differences acknowledged and used
• High Quality output and results
• Next step well-defined

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Meeting Facts

• 25 to 80 of managers and professionals time
  is spent in meetings
• More than 33 of time spent in meetings is
  unproductive, costing business an estimated 37
  billion a year
• For one Fortune 500 firm, the loss is 71 million
  a year

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Meeting Facts

• Almost 72 of business leaders surveyed currently
  spend more time in meetings than they did five
  years ago. More than 49 expect to be spending
  even more time in meetings four years from now.
• Only 33 of business leaders surveyed have had
  formal training in how to run meetings

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Meeting Facts

• Although 75 say it is almost essential to have
  an agenda, they use an agenda only 50 of the
  time
• Only 64 of meetings achieve their intended
  outcome

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What is a Meetings?
A meeting is an outcome directed interaction
between 2 or more people that can take place in
any of four environments
Time
Same
Different
Focus Groups
Shift Workers
Same
Any Time, Any Place
Place
Video Teleconferencing
Different
Dispersed Project Team
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Outcome-directed meeting
Resources
Present State (problems)
Desired State (outcomes)
Action Plan
Topic 1 Activity Activity Topic
2 Activity Activity Topic 3
Task
Agenda (Steps)
Group/ people
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Skills Assessment Meeting

• Outcome to generate priority list of specific
  facilitation skills to focus on and use as
  examples
• Evidence priority list of skill categories
  grounded by specific skills
• Agenda
• Gererate 3 specific skills
• Organize skills into catgegories
• Priority

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Meeting Cycle
Outcomes Agenda Who to invite Ground
rules/roles Particapnt preparation
Pre meeting design
Post meeting
Meeting
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Running the Meeting
Hold to agenda
Open Set up
Close Wrap up
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Meeting Outcome Questions

• Statement of outcomes
• What do we what to achieve in this meeting
• What specifically has to be accomplished by the
  end of this meeting

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Meeting Outcome Questions

• Well-formed Checks
• Positive Is the meeting outcome stated in
  positive terms?
• Control Is the outcome under the groups
  control?
• Evidence When the meeting is over, how will the
  group know whether the meeting was a success?

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Meeting Outcome Questions

• Worthwhile Checks
• Gains/Loses What will happen if the group gets
  this outcome?
• Resources What resources will it take to get
  this outcome? Worth the effort?
• Representative Check the larger outcome. Will
  this meeting lead to our higher outcome?

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Meeting Outcome Questions

• Where to Tap
• Up What will achieving this outcome do for our
  group/organization?
• Down What stops us from achieving this outcome?
  What do we want instead?

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The Island Experience

• Somewhere in the middle of the uncharted Pacific
  Ocean, we find a beautiful, green, and
  uninhabited island. An off-course plane crashed
  on the island stranding seven people-a pregnant
  woman, a well-known American scientist, a
  teen-aged girl, an elderly diabetic man, a famous
  doctor, a software specialist, and a catholic
  priest.

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The Island Experience

• By luck, a lost plane stumbles upon he island,
  but can carry only one of the seven back and
  possibly reach civilization. Since the plane was
  lost and does not have a GPS, the likelihood of
  its being able to return is remote. Although the
  people on the island will not starve, they must
  be able to meet necessary social and biological
  needs to survive.

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The Island Experience

• Your Task
• Develop meeting outcome and evidence
• Develop meeting agenda Sequence of generate,
  organize, evaluate, communicate.

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The Island Experience

• Your Task
• Turn in a written expression of your
  outcome-oriented meeting (an outcome map to
  include with your journal)
• The write a journal entry to be submitted as a
  component of assignment 5 providing your
  assessment of the effectiveness of the team and
  the members of the team.

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Meetings

• More on meetings next time