Читать книгу Effective Meetings in 7 simple steps - Barry Tomalin - Страница 15

Let’s practise what we preach and have a brief summary of shorter meetings. Here are three ideas:

 Meeting at 10.10 Most people expect ten o’clock. They wander in a few minutes late, get coffee or tea, find their seat, complain that there are no biscuits, and catch up on gossip. So the first ten minutes or so is actually wasted time. That’s why some meeting organisers start their meetings at an odd time. They start at ten minutes past ten, ignore latecomers and don’t recap for them. They get on with the agenda and finish when they say they will. If there is anything not discussed, they do it in a private meeting later or put it back to the next meeting.

 Stand-up meetings That’s right. No one sits down. After half an hour or less, people are sagging – a great way to shorten a meeting, though not very comfortable.

 Timed agenda Some meeting organisers put a duration against each point on the agenda, e.g. holiday time announcement (5 mins). This used to be very popular but has fallen out of favour now. Still useful, though, if only as an indicator.

If you think short meetings are impossible, look at the agenda of the President of the United States: Affairs of State may be concluded in ten minutes. No time for chat there.