Managing Meetings and Minute Taking

Managing Meetings and Minute Taking

Aim:

This training programme encompasses all aspects of meetings – from planning and chairing them to producing professionally-presented minutes and even evaluating the effectiveness and cost efficiency of meetings in your organisation. If required, this programme can be broken down into a half day on Managing Meetings and a half day on Minute Taking.

Course Objectives:

• Gain clarity on whether a meeting is or isn’t appropriate

• Understand how to chair a meeting effectively

• Develop ability to produce professional, accurate minutes

Course Content:

Do we really need a meeting?  Exploring alternative options to ensure that a meeting is the best use of everyone’s time

Why meetings fail – the top 8 reasons

• Planning for the meeting – setting the 3 levels of outcome, ensuring the right people are invited, creating an effective agenda

• Chairman’s preparation checklist

• Meeting room layout and seating plan – where to place your allies and your trouble makers

• The meeting in process – understanding group behaviour and dynamics

• Key behaviour skills of the successful Chairperson

• Rules of Order – to be followed in formal meetings

• Dealing with difficult participants and situations

• The Chairperson as a facilitator

• Avoiding or resolving conflict

• Participation, presentation and influencing skills for attendees

• The importance of listening

• Power struggles and hidden agendas – their effects on meetings

• 11 sure fire ways to wreck a meeting

• Steering the meeting towards a conclusion

• Minutes – what to include, what to leave out

• Sections, styles and layouts of minutes

• Who is doing what and when

• Headings and numbering

• Useful words for minutes

• Writing in the active rather than passive tense

• Writing concisely, professionally and clearly

• Review and follow-up – how cost effective and efficient are your meetings?  A checklist to measure their effectiveness in your organisation.