Archive for June, 2010

Evaluating Meeting Effectiveness

Monday, June 7th, 2010

When you facilitate a meeting, do you take time to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the meeting and your ability to support the group to achieve a positive outcome? Reviewing both is a bit like assessing your performance in athletics, acting or almost anything else. It is absolutely essential if you want to systematically improve.

Sometimes, of course, we don’t know exactly what to evaluate–so I thought a  few tips might be helpful. In this blog, I’ll focus on the overall effectiveness of a meeting; in a later one, I’ll focus on the specific role of the facilitator or meeting chair.

Before you review the questions below to guide your evaluation,  you might want to develop a rating scale, say from 1 to 4, with 1 representing “no, not at all” to 4 represeting, “yes, well done.” Anything below a three needs work!

Overall meeting effectiveness:

1. Was an agenda developed prior to the meeting?

2. Were participants able to provide input into the agenda?

3. Did the agenda clearly state the purpose of the meeting, key objectives and  desired outcomes?

4. Did participants receive the meeting announcement and any background information in time to adequately prepare?

5. Were requests for inputs or presentations at the meeting clearly linked to the purpose and objectives of the meeting?

6. At the start of the meeting, did you (or the facilitator) review the agenda, the time lines for each topic and the reason for that topic on the agenda?

7. Did the meeting start within 5 minutes of the scheduled time?

8. Did the meeting follow the agenda and the allocated time lines?

9. Were key points appropriately summarized?

10. Were responsibilities for action items clearly articulated?

11. Did the meeting end within 5 minutes of its scheduled end time?

12. Did the faciliator ask participants for feedback regarding the meeting’s success or what could have been better?

Taking just a few minutes to answer these questions  honestly will help you and your team develop a sure-fire strategy to improve both the productivity of meetings and the groups’  level of satisfaction. It also clearly demonstrates not just your commitment to continuous improvement but also to the Art of People…