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Business Meetings - Get the most out of your meeting investment

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Delivering Measurable Business Results From Meetings and Events
 
A comment on a presentation done by Richard D. Flanagan Ph.D that took place in Ottawa as a part of a joint venture with PCMA and Ottawa Tourism
 
Recently a group of meeting planners, suppliers and colleagues met in downtown Ottawa to talk about Delivering Measurable Business Results from Meetings and Events.
 
The talk/discussion began with a very true statement that a “Meeting is an investment”
 
You have inputs which are the preparation, the meeting itself, an application or action and the outputs/results or returns.
 
So how do you make meetings more of a productive event?

the answer is not in the act of having a meeting it is in the PROCESS. 
 
Dr. Flanagan said a few things that really resonated with me  
 
"objectives are dreams if they do not become actions."
 
“ The primary purpose of a meeting or event is to improve business and personal results for all stakeholders”
 
So how do we achieve /increase results from meetings, more specifically create measurable results?
 
A great model he introduced is called “Pathway to results”
 
It involves the following;
 
Strategic Meeting Objectives: What is the stated overall business purpose of the meeting or event.

A tip - Begin with the end in mind

1. Define the purpose of the meeting.  I think the idea here is to define what you want to get out of this meeting, or what purpose or "business need" as defined by Dr. Flanagan will be met.
2. Design the meeting.  What steps are needed to acquire the end result needed.  An example in marketing would be setting up a mind mapping exercise...what would it be for you?
3. Deliver - make this actionable - what action do we need to take to make this a reality and who will be responsible for what?
4.  Drive and Deploy - actions to assure there is a follow through and the requirements to support.                                       To assure follow through happens you could create a calendar of activities with actions to take, time lines, names of those accountable for actions and a summarization column. Generally people and resources would be the means to support actions.
5. Document - summarize what happened, the end result and debrief with the team involved.  Ask the imperative question...what action need to take place now.

 What are your suggestions for maximizing ROI on meetings...any agenda secrets you want to share?