COURSE OVERVIEW:

A business meeting is a gathering of two or more people for the purpose of making decisions or discussing company objectives and operations. Business meetings are generally conducted in person in an office, boardroom, etc. however with the rise of video conferencing technologies, participants can join a business meeting from anywhere.

Meetings are vitally important – if done well. Meetings help people feel included, trusted, and that they are important team members, as well as giving them the opportunity to contribute to the success of our companies.

As companies become more focused on efficiency, productivity and profitability, it has become essential that businesses look at their numbers to ensure that their time, money, and manpower are being put to good use — one of the biggest opportunities lies in assessing how business meetings are run.

We’ve all been in meetings that were run poorly, included the wrong people and didn’t lead to concrete objectives. By improving how meetings are run, businesses have a major way to immediately improve the way time is managed and how team members collaborate. Following best practices, using the right collaboration tools and holding everyone accountable can significantly improve your meeting experience.

Meetings are not only one of the most important ways for employees to communicate within organisations, but they’re also the way that teams get their work done. Although individual team members work on tasks outside of meetings, team meetings give members the opportunity to come together to determine the team’s goals, its plans for achieving its goals, and who will do what — and when.

This course will take you step by step through the process of a meeting, from start to finish and beyond. It reviews the impact of bad meetings, the factors that cause meetings to be bad, and the characteristics of good meetings. It outlines and discusses preparation. It explains how to start a meeting, including setting rules and assigning roles and responsibilities. It offers guidelines and suggestions for conducting a meeting, with a discussion of the problems that can arise and ways to deal with them. It explains how to close a meeting and how to follow up on the results. It recommends a selection of activities that can enable participants to work together more effectively and efficiently. It ends by discussing the use of technology in meetings and the issues involved in meeting virtually.

If you follow the basic principles and guidelines presented in this course, you’ll find it easy to improve your meetings. You and your people will find that meetings don’t waste time but actually improve performance.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

By the end of this course, you will be able to understand:

• The importance of business meetings
• How to spot ineffective meetings?
• The real impact of poor meeting planning
• The symptoms of ineffective meetings
• How to make meetings effective?
• What are the benefits of good meetings?
• The importance of doing a cost-benefit analysis of your meetings?
• How to decide whether to meet or not?
• How to define meeting purpose?
• How to get what you expect from your participants?
• How to communicate “possibility”, “opportunity” and “action”?
• How to make decisions?
• When to vote, use consensus or delegate?
• What you should not do when scheduling your agenda?
• How to pick and prepare participants?
• How to set the scene and prepare properly?
• How to display the meeting agenda?
• How to assign roles? And what are the four roles to consider?
• How to use roles most effectively?
• How to start the meeting right?
• How to deal with special circumstances?
• How to agree on ground rules? And what are the three don’ts for ground rules?
• How to conduct the meeting?
• How to make better use of meeting time?
• How to encourage and improve discussions?
• How to direct traffic during the meeting?
• The four team player styles that are essential to any team and how to work with team player styles?
• How to get the greatest benefit from personal differences?
• How to get a decision from your participants?
• How to close the meeting?
• What to do to end your meetings better?
• How to evaluate your meeting effectively?
• The importance of meeting minutes and how to provide them?
• How to provide support to people responsible for action items?
• What to do if there are problems with the roles of facilitator, scribe, timekeeper, and note taker?
• Why provide training to participants after meeting?
• How to identify the causes in a meeting to solve a problem?
• The repetitive why analysis
• The cause-and-effect analysis
• How to stimulate and support thinking?
• How to get lots of ideas in a meeting?
• How to conduct a brainstorming session?
• How to conduct a mind mapping session?
• How to evaluate options or choices?
• How to organise and work with ideas generated by the group?
• How to decide and plan on options?
• How to meet virtually?
• Why focus on purposes, people, and processes when using technology?

COURSE DURATION:

The typical duration of this course is approximately 2-3 hours to complete. Your enrolment is Valid for 12 Months. Start anytime and study at your own pace.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

You must have access to a computer or any mobile device with Adobe Acrobat Reader (free PDF Viewer) installed, to complete this course.

COURSE DELIVERY:

Purchase and download course content.

ASSESSMENT:

A simple 10-question true or false quiz with Unlimited Submission Attempts.

CERTIFICATION:

Upon course completion, you will receive a customised digital “Certificate of Completion”.