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How to have a good meeting?

One of the features of businesses is meetings. These meetings, are of great importance and also can waste the participants time and end without positive results. The aim of meeting often is to solve existing or arising problems either internally or externally, thus if the meeting gives negative results the progress is also positive while if the results yielded are negative the problem tends to reoccur and thus little or no development is achieved.

 In this blog, we intend to provide solutions to make your meetings more productive, efficient and effective. These are the most common requirements for the basic meeting:

Do you have an AGENDA?

An agenda is a list of meeting activities in the order in which they are to be taken up, beginning with the call to order and ending with adjournment. It usually includes one or more specific items of business to be acted upon.

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One of the issues that make meetings long and inefficient is the lack of an agenda. This is a very important requirement, what is the aim of the meeting? The purpose of the meeting should be clear , short and easy to comprehend for all parties present for the meeting.

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The agenda should be availed in advance to the people invited to the meeting either through emails, memos or faxes or even phones, this enables the parties to prepare for the meeting in advance. There are several benefits to writing an agenda, these are :

  • Everyone comes to the meeting ready and well informed of what is going to be discussed.
  • At the beginning of the meeting, there is no need to add additional explanations as to why the meeting was held. This will improve the time management for the meeting timeline.
  • By the close of the meeting the parties are aware of the result weather positive or negative thus determines the adjournment of the meeting and also helps determine a clear way forward to handing the situation at hand.
  • Writing an agenda lets the participants know how much time they have to spend on it. For example, if you do not know what you want to talk about, you cannot determine how long it will take. It is better to have completely clear topics to talk about all of them.

Prepare the meeting venue early

You need a quiet environment to hold your meetings that the meeting goes well. You should prepare the meeting room in advance in all respects. A good meeting room can help the quality of the meeting.

A meeting room or venue should have these features :

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  • A meeting room should have enough facilities. This means that it should include a screen, whiteboard, this is to enhance better presentations and brainstorming forum, comfortable chairs and private space. You may need a screen to present or a projector for better view of the presentations. So you should check your file in advance and make sure it is displayed. Or maybe You need a whiteboard to explain a subject, so you must have marker with you.
  • Meeting room location should be in an accessible location to all members. Never invite your team members to the furthest corner of the city for a one-hour meeting. Time is the most valuable asset.
  • Parking is one of the most important services for a meeting. You will not have time to go to the meeting place half an hour earlier and look for a parking space. A meeting venue should have enough parking if it’s away from the office.
  • Internet is very important tool for holding meetings that need to be virtual. Many meetings do not require internet and all members must be offline for the meeting to go well but we are in a digital era where meetings can be held from anywhere as long as there is the aspect of network, thus if you are in a situation where you have to hold a virtual meeting then internet should be a core requirement.
  • Focus is one of the most important factors in increasing efficiency. A poor meeting environment distracts you and thus reduces the efficiency of the meeting. For example, suppose in a meeting room, the voice of people comes out of the meeting room and you have to speak louder. It also disturbs the focus of other people and can make the meeting disruptive.
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Do not forget to manage the meeting.

Suppose you have a five-person meeting with your team members. A one-hour meeting should be worth 5 hours for you because in that one hour 5 of your employees could do more work this is possible since with one hour many goals can be achieved within a short period of time by brainstorming and contribution thus saving time and achieving more. This means that if you do not manage the meeting, you will lose.

Meeting management is divided into several sections:

  • Time management: The start and end time of the meeting must be specified. If we do not specify the end time of the meeting, the meeting may take a long time. Each person should also be given adequate time to speak. Sometimes one person’s speech is long and makes everyone tired. The moderator should manage the time and avoid prolonging it.
  • Content management: The meeting should proceed according to the agenda. We should not talk about topics that are not on the agenda unless asked to discuss in the time allocated for other topics. The ultimate goal of the meeting should be clear according to the agenda. If we do not avoid issues that may prolong the meeting, we will not achieve the desired result.
  • Emotion management: Sometimes, due to the issues raised in the meeting, our emotions cause us to react. For example, if a person disagrees with the decision of the members, he must explain it logically. But if he cannot manage his emotions and gets angry, it causes the meeting to be chaotic and not have a good result.
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The minutes are the final step to a good meeting.

At the end of the meeting, all that remains is the minutes. Everyone forgets the results of the meeting as soon as possible. They do not know what to do and what reports to prepare for the next meeting. In order for the results of the meeting to be documented, the minutes must be written.

The minutes of the meeting must include the names of the people present at the meeting. Also, all members present at the meeting must sign the minutes. A minutes should include all the issues that were raised and decided on in the meeting.

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In the case of a meeting, we must know exactly who, on what date, what to do. The minutes of the meeting are documents that can be referred to and cited in the future. This document is so important that it should be Write the beginning of the meeting carefully.

  • The minutes must be signed by all those present at the meeting or rather the chair of the meeting and the secretary who wrote the minutes and also additionally the seconded person that confirm the minutes are correct once read out in the next meeting.
  • The date of the meeting should be written. Also, the date of future actions of the meeting should be specified if discussed, so that it can be evaluated in the next meeting.
  • The minutes should be clear, easy to understand and straight to the point to all people. There should be no question about the outcome of the meeting unless the minutes are wrongly written.

You try to hold your meetings optimally. Because you save a lot of time and this will grow your business. When your competitors are wasting their time, you are the one who cleverly manages the meetings.

You go ahead and get better results. By implementing this content, you will be able to increase the efficiency of your meetings. As an innovation and technology center, we have prepared one of the above for your meetings. We can host your meetings for 2 to 50 people.

Our meeting rooms include screens, whiteboards, high speed internet, comfortable furniture and parking. Our center is located in the Kilimani area. Our meeting rooms are for weekly meetings You and your team are ready every month. Also, if you are planning to hold training meetings for your team, you can contact us to provide space for you to hold this event.

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MEETING ROOM

IHiT has an elegant meeting room /board room that is sound proof and suitable for a small board meeting carrying the capacity of up to 6 people. It coming with a smart screen for sharing content and presentations together with a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI cable) or in preference of a white board to scribble down illustrations. At a very friendly price (1000 Ksh) per hour you get to use the board room space.

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Conference room

It is also known as the auditorium or the training room that like the meeting room comes with a smart screen and a potable white board together with a HDMI cables to help with the presentation of the clients. Unlike the meeting room the auditorium the minimum capacity is 7 while the maximum is 50. The striking difference between the conference room and the meeting room is that the conference room charges vary according the number of the people, for example 6 to 10 people are charged 1500 per hour while 20 to 50 people are charged 3000 Ksh per hour.