An article to which I conrtibuted in 2003 is as relevant today as it was then.

Getting people together in a room is one thing; getting a result is another, writes Judy Barnsley.

Have you heard the one about meetings? The best meetings are held standing up.

It’s a throwaway line that hides a deeper truth; that for most managers and staff there are too many meetings.

David Price, of Walk Tall International, is in the business of training people to run successful meetings and says most people feel this way.

“If you walk into virtually any meeting anywhere in the world and ask what’s the purpose of this meeting, most people will answer, `It’s Wednesday. We always meet on Wednesday,”‘ he says. “But they can’t tell you the purpose [of the meeting].”

And having a purpose is one of the keys to a successful meeting, even if it’s just to review and to plan, says Price. But it must produce ideas, suggestions or recommendations.

To keep the meeting relevant and focused, he recommends setting up an agenda. “If there’s no agenda, it’s a waste of time,” says Price. “The phenomenon that people don’t generally understand is that the shorter the agenda the longer the meeting, the longer the agenda the shorter the meeting.”

You can read the full article here