Have you ever met such a situation? During a meeting participants plunge into numbness, lose focus and are completely switched off from work. Often the structure of a meeting can kill its content.

What is my “recipe for success”?

A meeting should be held with goodwill and trust for all participants. Also the meeting should be conducted for only as long as it reasonable, too long of a meeting time spoils the results. It is critical that all participants trust one to another, so they can exchange all of their opinions and ideas without fear of being criticized.

The primary objective is to make the meeting as visual as possible. Using visual documentation during the main stages of a meeting will engage and focus the meeting participants.

1. Preparing to meet

Each participant should receive notification by email of the meeting particulars. From this notification, everyone will also learn what they should prepare for the meeting. It is important to make it short and clear from the first start. The best tool for such purposes is a mind map.

2. Holding meeting

It is very important to conduct a meeting's flow in the right order. Visual documentation is also very helpful during this stage. Using similar terminology for like documents reduces time on their discussion. The best tool for such purposes is also a mind map. Many times it is the same mind map, that was created while preparing for the meeting. It is easy to edit the map by making notes, or add topics during the meeting; all participants can see the edits on a screen or on a white board. Working in a team, it is then possible to obtain an atmosphere of understanding, and be assured that the documents will be understood correctly by all participants.

3. Meeting results

The decisions made in the meeting should be accurately documented. It is impossible to have effective meeting results if no documentation exists at the conclusion of the meeting. A mind map can be used to identify decisions made on each item of meeting's agenda. As a rule when the meeting comes to a conclusion it is good to already have the summary document prepared. The summary document can be used to generate ToDo mind maps for meeting participants or it can be used as a checklist for further work. Very often people make notes during the meeting. It is useful to include them into a summary. Furthermore, such notes can many times be written by the entire team. These notes from the participants add value because of the additional information and value in the summary document.

Summary

The necessity of having meetings is obvious. The point is to find methods and techniques which are capable of improving meetings. It is critical to a project's success to find methods that can help a manager make meetings shorter, and make meetings more informative, exciting and effective for all participants.

Read the practical advices about tools, you can use to manage visual meetings in the article “Managing Meeting with ConceptDraw MINDMAP”.