Facilitating with Ease! Core Skills for Facilitators, Team Leaders and Members, Managers, Consultants, and Trainers, 3rd Edition

Chapter Eight

Meeting Management

One of the key facilitator roles is to know how to design and manage effective meetings. First, sensitize yourself to the ingredients of an ineffective meeting:

• — lack of clarity about the meeting goal
• — a vague or nonexistent agenda
• — no time limits on discussions
• — no discernible process for working on important issues
• — no one facilitating discussions
• — people haven’t done their homework
• — discussions that go off track or spin in circles
• — lack of closure to discussions before moving on
• — people vehemently arguing points of view rather than debating ideas
• — a few people dominating while others sit passively ...