Having Effective Meetings

The following are some tips for effective meetings:

• Plan date, time, location, who should attend
• Choose Meeting Facilitator; it can be the same person who is in charge of the project or you can choose a different facilitator each meeting
• Set an Agenda; this is done by the meeting facilitator who also asks for agenda items from the team
• Start and End Meetings Promptly (Be on time!); be courteous of other people’s time
• Address Each Agenda Item Separately;
• Be Courteous and Encourage Participation
• Reach Consensus and Move On; if you cannot reach consensus or a single agenda item is taking too much time you can postpone that item to another time
• Record Decisions
  • What actions will be taken
  • Who is responsible for those actions
  • When should it be completed by

Here are two excellent Ted Talks on teamwork:

• Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team  7 min
• Margaret Heffernan: Forget the pecking order at work 15 min

Here are some others you may also wish to view:

• Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action  18 (why, how, and what)
• Dan Pink (2009): The puzzle of motivation 18 min
• Susan Cain: The power of introverts 19 min
• Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education  17 min

More on teams and team communication can be found in chapter 7 “Managing Team Communication” in Fundamentals of Engineering Technical Writing .