How about using some ground rules? When attendees know the expected behavior, they are much more likely to “play by the rules.” This is a great way to keep meetings on track and hold everyone personally accountable for his or her actions and behavior. Here is a sample that can work for any meeting:

• Start and stop meetings on time
• Everyone is expected to participate
• Leave job titles at the door
• Avoid side tracking by keeping to scheduled time for each topic
• Respect each other’s comments/opinions
• One person speaks at a time – no side conversations
• Come prepared
• Actions/decisions will be assigned to an owner, with a due date
• HAVE FUN!

Another common pitfall is not assigning clear cut meeting roles. When roles and responsibilities have not been clearly defined, you are simply asking for chaos in your meetings. A well organized meeting should have a leader/facilitator (with a back-up if necessary), time-keeper, minute-taker, scribe, and of course the other participants. Each of these roles is equally important to meeting success and should be identified, even if someone must take on more than one role. You may want to consider rotating each role for every meeting or rotating roles once a month so that everyone has an opportunity to fulfill every role at one time or another. Each of these roles helps to ensure that meetings are run in a timely fashion and that everyone is accountable.

There should always be a facilitator or meeting leader to conduct the meeting in an efficient manner. The leader/facilitator has one primary goal: to ensure teams reach participative decisions and create action plans when necessary. You may also want to consider a back-up leader/facilitator if you have a large sized meeting or if the leader/facilitator is less experienced. Other responsibilities include:

• Determine the necessity of the meeting
• Plan the meeting to ensure that the purpose and objectives are clear
• Provide structure for the meeting and guide discussions
• Keep the meeting focused and on track
• Ensure the right participants and ONLY the needed participants are in the meeting

The time-keeper is a role that might appear trivial. In reality, this is one of the most challenging roles and requires a great deal of assertiveness. The effective time-keeper not only keeps an eye on time, but must be courageous enough to speak up and make others aware of staying within appropriate timeframes. The time-keeper is also responsible for assisting the meeting leader in the following areas:

• Help keep the group focused
• Provide two-minute warnings before allotted times are over for each agenda item
• Provide five-minute warnings before the ending time of the meeting
• Be assertive to help keep the meeting on track

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