A lot of my work takes place in the form of meetings. I am participating in other people’s meetings or planning my own meetings. Meetings can be a great forum for communication and knowledge sharing though sometimes they don’t always turn out that way.
I was struck recently by an article published by the Asian Development Bank called Conducting Effective Meetings. It made me think about the different types of meetings we hold and their various natures. In understanding the difference between an advisory meeting and a committee meeting, how might I conduct it differently?
I am planning an advisory committee meeting for December 1st and based on the article I will pay attention to some underlying realities such as: the advisory meeting is to share information, listen to questions/views and seek advice.
Some things I have been preparing in order to have a successful meeting have been:
– using technology to go beyond the traditional teleconference (we will use GoTo Webinar)
– polling for a convenient date/time for everyone using doodle.com
– providing opportunities for agenda input
– providing an agenda with specific objectives and time allocations as well as background documents at least a week in advance
– ensuring the topics for discussion are interesting, well thought out and have clear questions that I seek advice on
I have two weeks further to prep. I will keep you posted on how it goes.
