There are different types of meetings. Each type requires a different structures and supports a different number of participants. For instance, a status (feedforward) meeting has no limit to the number of participants while a decision-making meeting produces results faster with a small number of participants.
If you want to help your teams have more effective meetings, set the participants expectations about the meeting by stating in the agenda –
- the purpose of the meeting.
- the type of meeting
The typical meeting types are:
- problem-solving
- decision-making
- planning
- feedforward (status reporting and new information presentations)
- feedback (reacting and evaluating )
- combination meetings
For instance, the agenda states that you will be a participant in a problem-solving meeting to scale the application so it supports 500 simultaneous users. That description makes it crystal clear what you are there to do. And after you participate in a number of the same type of meetings, you will know that meeting’s structure and your role.
Although it’s in the list, I don’t like combination meetings. Participants, in my experience, aren’t as focused in a combination meeting; thus the results are poor. If you insist on combination meetings, I suggest your break them into segments of different meeting types. Despite segmentation, time management for a combination meeting is more difficult than a single type of meeting because you have more than one purpose to achieve.
If you want to save yourself and your teammates time and effort, propose to management that the purpose, type, and agenda of a meeting be clearly stated in the scheduling request for every meeting.
Go the extra mile. Find out how participants rate the value of the meeting. Use that feedback to constantly adapt the design of the meeting to produce greater value.
Reference
Michael Doyle and David Straus, How to Make Meetings Work, ISBN 0-515-09048-4, pp.159-166
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Please write by focus on types and functions
Hi Mot, Thank you for your request. I’ll see what I can do to satisfy it.
If you include a small introduction about meetings it would be better.
Hi Pulith, thank you for the feedback. You are the second person to suggest more information would be helpful. I’ll post something in the next week.
have an assignment about planning meetings can you give me some ideas on this thank you.
Hi Sandra, The design for a planning meeting demonstrates a leader’s planning skills. The planning for any project, which includes a meeting, is an exercise in working backwards.
What outcome(s) are desired? The answer to that question is always more than “a plan” — it’s a plan to produce D (things as desired). A successful plan describes how to bridge the gap between D and P (things as perceived). The design for a successful planning meeting doesn’t try to build the bridge before exploring D and P.
If you have the right participants and a safe environment, exploration will create a shared understanding of both D and P. Lots of possible ways to explore; for instance, ask participants to share facts and data about D and P, which diverges the participants. Follow that by exploring how participants interpret that data (trace meaning to data elements). Follow that by exploring which meanings are most significant, which converges the participants. Your objective is to come up with a list of the most significant things about D and P.
With an understanding of D and P, you are ready to explore how to build the bridge. I like to split the participants into groups groups that work in parallel to propose elements of the plan. With each subgroup reporting periodically back to the whole group about their thinking and progress. This creates a cycle of divergence and convergence.
Note, I cannot overemphasize the importance of safety in successful planning, please see my article Safety Check.
I hope my ideas help. Wishing you success with your planning meetings.
You did a great job, keep it up. Thank you. God bless you so much.
Thank you.
You are welcome.
Hi Steven,
I apologize for the less than advanced question… but more and more I see the “drumbeat” meeting being called.
Though my impression is that the drumbeat meeting is intented to be one where you “get an overall feel for what is happening with a prject,” it seems there are MANY variations in my company, and causes much confusion when I am part of these meetings.
Can you discuss your interpretation of a “drumbeat meeting?”
Thanks!
D-
Hi D, I like the term “drumbeat” meeting. Your usage is the first time I’ve heard that word used in this context. It sounds like the meeting you refer to are status meetings. The key to this type of meeting is sharing state information between participants of the project. Your company may benefit from a consistent structure for these type of meetings. The Agile Software Development community calls their status meetings a “stand-up” meeting. Although I think the stand-up component has zero value, the structure they use is excellent. See my article, Rethinking Stand-Up Meetings, for more information. Wishing you success with reducing confusion.
sir i need the introduction of meetings and more types of meeting with full description..gudmorning.
what are the advantage, disadvantage , characteristics and setbacks of real time form of ad hoc meeting especially in developing countries like tanzania.
Thank you for the question, Raymond.
I’ll bet you have more experience with ad hoc meetings in developing countries than I do. What do you think the advantages, disadvantages, characteristics and setbacks of a real time form of ad hoc meetings?
hi. sir. i just would like to ask if i can use the title “feedforward meeting”? this is in regards to a meeting to be called on various sector in the city of the proposed tax ordinance which we have already conducted the public hearing on this. our plan to have this feedforward meeting is to present the final draft of the ordinance.
thanks.
Please do. It sounds like an appropriate title.
Can you please suggest and tell me catchy name for business meeting with supervisory team.
Hi Bhanu, I don’t know if it’s “catchy” but the standard name used in the USA is a steering committee meeting.
Thank you smith
Thanks for doing such a great job, Smith.
You are welcome, Rizvan. Thank you for the feedback.
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