Free Essay On Business Meeting Procedure

A meeting involves a gathering of many people with a given aim. Meetings usually involve passing information or sharing of the information. A meeting should be planned, communicated and then attended. Generally, the time and place of the meeting are very important. These features distinguish meetings from other gatherings. Gatherings that are not planned and have no aim of exchanging information cannot be said to be meetings. Therefore not all gatherings constitute a meeting.
Meetings are necessary when there is a need to discuss issues face to face. This is important in arriving to important decisions. When new ideas are being brought forward, meetings are relevant. When problems are being solved, face to face meetings are necessary. Generally, meetings are necessary when the tone of individual and the body language provides additional message to the people communicating.
With the new technology, Google hangouts and teleconferencing are the new ways of holding meetings. The major advantage of this technology is that it is cost effective. This is due to the fact that people are not required to travel to a certain place. Therefore the costs of travelling are eliminated. In addition, time is saved because there is no time wastage moving from one place to another.
The four protocols of a meeting are minutes, agenda, quorum and motions. Minutes are a record of what has been discussed in a meeting. Agenda is what is aimed to be addressed in a meeting; quorum is the minimum number of attendants needed for a meeting to start. Finally, motions are proposals that are to be supported and become decisions. Protocols are important in ensuring that meetings are valid, there is a future reference of the meeting and there is no time wastage during meetings. In addition, meeting protocols makes it easy to arrive at decisions.
Those who take meetings should have certain skills to be effective. They should be good listeners so that they can easily grasp what has been said. They should be fast writers to ensure that they writing everything that is necessary. They should be people who are able to spell words correctly to avoid mistakes in the minutes. In addition, minutes takers should be people easily understands the language being used in the meeting.
Cause and effects diagrams are mostly used by facilitators in many cases. The main advantage of this model is that it helps to identify all the causes of the problem being discussed in the case. However, the model cannot be used where the problem is very complex and interrelated.
The major advantage of using PMI in decision making is that issues are looked from different perspectives and hence the best decision is usually arrived at. PMI is usually not effective in making decisions that have never been made before. This is due to the fact that PMI involves looking back at decisions that were made and worked or failed.