trouble

TroubleShooting Meetings

Fact: The average business individual spends 17 hours
a week in meetings, roughly 5 of these or 1 per workday is wasted.
Source: (Gulas 2000)

Dealing with tardiness:

Two techniques proved effective in curing cases of chronic tardiness are:
1.) To ignore latecomers
2.) To make no attempt to bring late-comers up to date.

Getting off the subject:

Getting off the subject is the most commonly reported meeting problem in business meetings. It usually exists when a meeting lacks structure, when there is extensive topic jumping or group members prematurely jump to a solution, and when irrelevant discussion occurs by following the suggested key steps taken by the chairperson of the meeting this problem can be alleviated.

Lack of Structure:

Meetings which do not progress from point to point in an organized way are difficult to keep on track because there is no common plan or perception as to what should be covered. This can be lessened by having discipline in tracking the discussion, summarizing after each point, and emphasizing upon crystal clear structure and progression throughout the entire discussion.

Topic and Solution Jumping:

The average group shifts topics every 1.5 minutes. Changing topics is natural but needs to be monitored by all group members in order to avoid being excessive. Everyone must strive to keep the number of topic shifts within reasonable limits. Solution jumping occurs when the group tires to solve a problem before adequate definition or analysis of the problem has been made. Solution jumping, like topic jumping, requires immediate intervention and correction by the chairperson or other group members by reverting back to the agenda item.

Irrelevant Discussion:

A well-planned chairperson's orientation will avert a significant amount of irrelevant comment. All group members need to relate their comments to the discussion and ask for clarification when another person's comments seem to be unrelated to the discussion.
(Mosuick, et. al., 1987)

Major Problems in Running a Meeting

One of the major problems a group often faces at the beginning of the meeting in reaching agreement on both top-level objectives. The objectives must be agreed upon before the meeting proceeds, if it is to be successful.
A major problem concerns the personalities of participants.
A firmly established, finite time limit for the meeting is the single most effective means of eliminating non-contributory discussion.
Another major problem that groups sometimes face is having participants become lost in the problems they are attempting to solve.
A major problem a group might face is how to make a decision at the proper time.
Groups often fall short in trying to reach decisions. Outside pressures or deadlines tend to foster majority-type or chairman-type decisions.

(Bizmove.com)

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