This isn't about whether the meeting is necessary you wouldn't be holding it, if it wasn't, right?

This isn't about getting the right people together you're smart enough to know exactly who you should be meeting with, right?

This isn't about making sure you've booked the room, checked everybody's diary and made sure they'll be there, and that the aircon works, and coffee/lunch will arrive on time, and that whatever presentational aids are needed (whiteboard, PC-projection, overheads whatever) are all available and functioningthat's your secretary's job, right?

That's the easy bit. You've established that a meeting is the best way to address these issues. These are the people who need to address them. They've promised to attend. The facilities are all in place. A meeting will, therefore, happen.

But will it be effective?

You've heard the expression herding cats'well if you want to run effective meetings, that's the skill you need to learn. Having them all in the same room is just like having the sheep all on the same fellit's a long way from having them penned in an agreement as to the best way forward. Your co-workers have a lot more in common with cats than they do with sheep: they are independent free thinkers who know what is bestand they're quite likely to be either hissing and spitting, or slinking around those with the power, until they get their own way.

Your job is to elicit which of their varied ways, or which amalgam of them, is the best way. Hence the meeting.

1. The Agenda:

Never ever hold a meeting without an agenda. The business to be discussed should be laid down. Depending on the nature of the meeting an "Any Other Business" item may be appropriatebut if you've done your agenda-setting effectively, matters raised at the meeting should be of a headline nature only. Items raised at this point which require due consideration, should be deferred to the next meeting, or another more appropriate method of dealing with them.

This meeting has a focus. The focus is the agenda'. Ideally a draft will have been issued 14 days before the meeting, with a request for any additional items to be submitted to the Chair. The final agenda with full supporting papers (where these are required don't produce reams just for the sake of it!) must be issued at least 7 days before the meeting to ensure busy people who are not always at their desk (a) get a chance to receive it, and (b) still have time to look at it and

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