Совещания. Подготовка совещаний

Meetings are one of the central elements in the company's control loop. Meetings, as a platform for face-to-face meetings and discussion of topical issues, as a method of activating abilities, removing information inequality and consolidating personnel, are an integral part of management culture, despite the presence of computers, e-mail and phones, and now - teleconferences. Good meetings save managers' time and increase firm efficiency. Without carefully prepared, effective meetings, working time in a much larger volume will inevitably be spent on spontaneous meetings of managers to address issues.

On the basis of experience with errors and losses, it is possible to identify the main stages of office meetings. Most managers focus on the preparation and conduct of these events, but only on performance monitoring issues and do not address other important elements of success. I think that a clearer and more detailed structure should be established for office meetings. Based on an analysis of typical mistakes, a review of multiple documents - meeting minutes agendas that have been held in different enterprises and organizations and literature sources - the following stages of meetings are highlighted:

• Stage 1 - organization of meetings - defining the circle of participants, objectives of the meetings, drawing up the plan of meetings for the period (quarter, year, ...), drawing up the rules of procedure of the meetings;
• Stage 2 - preparation of meetings - sending out notifications,
• of reminders and materials for a particular meeting, specification of dates, agenda and list of invitees, readiness check of premises, etc.;
• Stage 3 - Meetings - Discussion of topics and issues of the meeting, development of decisions, issuing of instructions to the executors of the agenda, preparation of draft minutes of the meeting;
• Stage 4 - Finalization of meetings - decision making and processing of the minutes of the meeting, including the preparation, negotiation, approval and distribution of the minutes;
• Stage 5 - control of the meetings - monitoring the execution of the orders of the meeting, recording the results of the execution of the orders, assessment of performing discipline, preparation of issues for the next meeting;
• Stage 6 - analysis of meetings - analysis of the database of meetings, history of issues, search for precedents in minutes, obtaining statistics on time and labor costs, review of meeting materials, quality assessment and improvement of meetings;

For meetings, you can specify the following performance conditions:

• Meetings should be organized in terms of objectives, topics, participants and should be planned in advance;
• For each meeting, an agenda should be set out defining the purpose, themes, and issues to be addressed;
• The meeting should have a leader, a secretary, a protocol maker and participants responsible for the issues on the agenda;
• All participants should be informed in advance of the date, time, place, and agenda and be provided with the meeting materials;
• Minutes should be kept during the meeting, recording the decisions taken and the tasks of the agenda;
• At the end of the meeting, the minutes should be agreed, approved and sent to all participants and implementers;
• Execution of tasks should be monitored, deviations from deadlines should be identified in a timely manner with an assessment of the execution discipline;
• Meeting minutes and proceedings should be accumulated in the meeting management system database for analysis of materials, case studies, etc.;
• Appropriate regulations and meeting automation tools should be used to reduce time wasted, provide information support for the stages of meetings, and ensure stable execution and improvement of meetings.

In conclusion, I want to understand the biggest drawbacks in the preparation of the meeting. Shortcomings in the preparation of meetings (meetings are not planned, the composition of participants is unknown before the meeting, the agenda is determined on site, there are no regulations, no or late delivery of materials, absenteeism and delay, unpreparedness of speakers, lack of equipment for meetings, etc.).