When it comes to being in charge of meetings, the best thing you can do to be successful is prepare. if you don’t come prepared, you probably should not come at all.
Don’t procrastinate when preparing for a meeting, the more you prepare, the higher the chance of success you will have. Before you even schedule the meeting, you need to figure out what the purpose of the meeting is and how necessary it is to have one. Write down exactly what it is you want to achieve and this will help you to stay focused on the real issues. Then see if the purpose you want to achieve can be done in a different way than holding a meeting. Can you make a phone call or have an informal conversation?
A week before your meeting, you should create the meeting agenda and deliver it to the people who will be attending. The meeting agenda will have the time the meeting will start and end, the meeting’s location, what will be covered and what you would like to happen, the goals and objectives should be listed from most important to least, a list of the time allotted for each one, and other participants who may speak and what they will cover.
It may be helpful for you to develop your agenda by putting the most important things you need to discuss in the beginning of the meeting. This way if people need to leave for other commitments or the meeting goes over the allotted time, you will have covered the main items.
