subject: Basic Steps to a Successful Business Meeting [print this page] Basic Steps to a Successful Business Meeting
A person needs to possess the required talents, the ability to make arrangements, inter-personal skills, logical thinking and proper goal setting to host a meeting in a successful way.
The attendees must be finalized prior to the meeting to avoid wasting the time and schedule of VIPs. The attendees of the meeting must be chosen in such a way that they are highly interested in the results of the meeting and will also contribute a lot to the meeting.
The entire agenda of the meeting must be decided in advance. In general, meetings are held to arrive at an important decision, for knowledge sharing, to solve a particular issue and for various other reasons. A clear agenda of the meeting must be provided to the attendees prior to meeting. A properly made agenda will be useful for giving utmost importance on the concerned issue along with focusing on the intended use of the meeting.
The attendees must be provided with all the supporting details prior to the start of the meeting and they must be given opportunities for clearing their doubts by asking questions in the meeting. It is very important to decide the right date and time that will be suitable for the attendees of the meeting and for solving the particular issue. A proper time limit must be set for the meeting to avoid the distraction of the attendees.
The meeting space must be quiet, well arranged with proper seating, provided with the required items and offer utmost comfort to the attendees thereby increasing their concentration on the meeting discussion.
There are three main options for hosting a business meeting. The first choice is to have a face to face discussion. This method will be useful for spotting subtle body language of attendees. To arrange this type of meeting, it is important to gather all the attendees at a single place and at the same time. This method is very difficult for multi-national organizations that have various branches in different countries. The meeting room and refreshment facilities must be arranged based on how long the meeting is going to be held.
The second choice is to arrange for a conference call. In this method, different people will be able to discuss a particular topic without any interruptions using the internet facility. The final choice is to conduct the meeting by using virtual meeting software. In this method, webcams will be used for faster communication and documents can be shared instantly with people located anywhere on the globe.
