Ever wondered how some people just have a knack for running meetings that finish on time and get things done? Management consultant Denis Cummings of Coverdale tells you his tips
Running an effective meeting is a challenge to any manager or team leader. Time lost or wasted at poorly run meetings can never be recovered and never appears on the balance sheet as costed time. The real opportunities that meetings afford are vast: lots of good minds all working towards a common aim, a creative process where creativity is channelled and challenged, and opportunities to share best practice and update one other. However, the reality is that too often, meetings perform at sub-optimal levels, achieving indifferent results and generating more problems than they solve.

At times you may feel a meeting is getting off track and wonder how to keep control. You may worry about how to fill the time allowed and then suddenly find that the meeting has overrun and you haven't quite got where you hoped.

Knowing the purpose
First, you need to be clear about the purpose of your meeting. Many meetings are run on a regular basis, and people may have lost sight of their original objectives. You need to make sure, too, that everyone at the meeting has the same understanding of what the meeting is for – to share information, to make a decision, to share a problem, to update one another on project progress. Circulating beforehand a note or e-mail stating the purpose of the meeting as well as the agenda can help sort this out. It is also worth making the expected output clear at the start of the meeting.

When you are running a meeting, the key skill for you to develop is the ability to stand back and not get too drawn into discussions. Try to remain aware of the way in which the meeting is proceeding as well as of what is being said. Is everyone contributing? Are you keeping more or less to time? Is everyone clear about what is being said? Are participants agreeing at great length? Are the usual hobby-horses being given more than the usual canter?

A flip chart is a valuable tool for recording the progress of a meeting. Decisions and key bits of information can be jotted up for all to see. This is a big help in keeping the meeting on track – you can summarise from time to time simply by reading what is on the chart. And writing on the chart doesn't have to be the job of the leader or manager – it may be much better to have someone else acting as "scribe". As leader, you can channel what is being said to the scribe in simple sentences.

Brainstorms need good time management – five or ten minutes is usually enough to get a good list of ideas

Timekeeping
Another role that can easily be shared during a meeting is that of timekeeper. Ask a member of the team to keep an eye on the clock for you and perhaps remind you if an agenda item looks likely to overrun. Sharing tasks like this helps make it clear that everyone plays a role in the success of the meeting - If you think that you alone are responsible for the success of your meetings, then you are probably already presiding over some pretty bad ones.

Obviously, the skills of listening and building on ideas, which I discussed last time, become particularly important in this context. So how can you make sure people use them? Well, by setting an example yourself, particularly in valuing and building on suggestions and ideas from team members. One role of someone running a meeting is that of "coaching" the team to help ensure the right sort of atmosphere. You can stop people interrupting and ask everyone to build on ideas rather than shoot them down. You can intervene if everyone starts talking at once and try to ask the quieter people for their views. Think of yourself as a conductor trying to get everyone to play in turn. (As a rule of thumb, it's useful to remember that if there are twelve people at a meeting that lasts an hour, each person is entitled to speak for only five minutes in total.)

Brainstorming
Don't feel that you have to come up with all the solutions to the problems yourself. One key purpose of meetings can be to tap into everyone else's ideas. An easy way to do this is to have a brainstorm – simply write your problem or question on a chart and ask everyone to shout out their ideas. In a brainstorm all ideas are valid. What may seem a wild or impractical idea might spark off another, more sensible one. Try to stop people from discussing or criticising ideas during the course of the brainstorm. Obviously, brainstorms require careful time management – five or ten minutes is usually enough to produce a good list of ideas.