Setting up a meeting

You and some colleagues want to have a meeting about some subject – how do you make this work?

Of course you know how to set up a meeting, that’s why everyone always shows up at the right place, on time, and prepared!

Initial Set up

1. Decide what the meeting is about.
2. Who needs to be there?
3. Who needs to know about it? These are not the same – there are people who must be there and people who need to be informed that it is happening.  How to “inform” someone while assuring they don’t actually attend would be a whole future post.
4. If many people are involved or have very complicated lives, first establish rough parameters for the meeting. Use a polling system like doodle.com to set up  a poll of possible times and draft a nice email with that link inviting people to the meeting.  Include a description of the purpose of the meeting and probable location.
5. Otherwise, for a simple meeting, send a calendar invite via iCal or Outlook.  You must follow this up with an email as Calendar programs strip information and your invite will likely not get through or have no information attached.
6. However, using a calendar invite is extremely useful in ensuring that people actually remember to show up.  Try to get physical location and/or zoom coordinates on that invitations well before the meeting.
7. If a physical meeting, find a meeting room.  The person who controls meeting rooms should be treated as the minor deity they are.  Get on their good side and stay there.
8. After a couple days, follow up with people who haven’t responded by email or phone.
9. Send out any materials that have long lead times so that people have a chance to prepare.

The day before

1. The day before, send out an email reminder of the meeting with an agenda and, if possible, online links to materials.  If people will be using phones or videoconferencing, include connection information in the message. This applies to all meetings, including ones that happen every week. Always send a reminder with the connection information, and if possible, the agenda.
2. Special hint – put the time, date and location in the subject line so people can see it without having to download the full email.
3. If the meeting is not happening, send out a message canceling it, even if it was only tentative. Otherwise the 2 people who actually take these things seriously will show up anyways and be disappointed.
4. If you want hard copies of documents, get them ready.
5. If there is an online agenda system, set it up and ask people to post materials.
6. Is there going to be food/beverages? Make a plan for getting them.

Right before

1. Go to the room 15 minutes before to make certain it is available and any audio-visual is set up.
2. If another group is hogging your room, find your largest and most imposing colleagues and have them loiter outside the room muttering ominously.
3. Start the meeting reasonably on time.  It’s ok to glare at latecomers.
4. Have someone check emails to make certain that people aren’t having connection problems if using phone/video links.
5. Have that person monitor the remote users and raise an alert if they are being ignored.
6. At the start, go over the agenda.
7. Try to keep to the agenda unless a consensus of people in the room and online wants to spend more time on an issue.
8. Make certain everyone gets a chance to ask questions if they want to.  Encourage remote users to raise hands/and or use the chat function if they are normally muted.
9. End on time.