Meetings sometimes take on a life of their own. Sometimes that’s a good thing. When new ideas are explored, breakthroughs occur, the status quo is challenged and new processes and products are born.
However, often there are just problems keeping a meeting under control. There are two parts to this issue. Before and during the meeting.
Before the meeting
Poor planning and communication will often set a meeting up for failure before it has started. Simply put the following questions or issues have not been answered or communicated:
- What is the purpose and goals of the meeting?
- Who is coming and why?
- What is my role?
- The agenda has not been reviewed in advance?
- Not enough notice for key attendees to make it
- Expected outcomes are not explained
- Confirmation of attendance and if alternates can attend on behalf
It’s pretty obvious that without these fundamentals in place, you have not done any planning therefore cannot expect to have success from the meeting in the first place. The meeting turning into a train wreck has to be expected, due to lack of planning.
