In a , two or more people come together for the purpose of discussing a (usually) predetermined topic such as business or community event planning, often in a formal setting.
In addition to coming together physically (in Real Life , face to face), communication lines and equipment can also be set up to have a discussion between people at different locations, e.g. a Conference Call or an E-meeting .
In Organization s, are an important vehicle for Human Communication . They are so common and pervasive in organizations, however, that many take them for granted and forget that, unless properly planned and executed, meetings can be a terrible waste of precious resources.
Because of their importance, a career in professional meeting planning has emerged in recent years. In addition, the field of Meeting Facilitation has formalized with an internationally-recognized "Certified Professional Facilitator" designation through the International Association of Facilitators (IAF)
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Meetings fall into ten categories:
- 1) Status Meetings, generally Leader-led, which are about reporting by one-way communication;
- 2) Work Meetings, which produce a product or intangible result such as a decision
- 3) Staff meeting -- typically a meeting between a manager and those that report to the manager (possibly indirectly).
- 4) Team meeting -- a meeting among colleagues working on various aspects of a team project.
- 5) Ad-hoc meeting -- a meeting called together for a special purpose
- 6) Management meeting -- a meeting among managers
- 7) Board meeting -- a meeting of the Board Of Directors of an organization
- 8) One to one meeting -- a meeting between two individuals
- 9) Off-site meeting -- also called "offsite retreat" or " Retreat " and known as an Awayday meeting in the UK
- 10) Kick-off Meeting-- is the first meeting with the project team and the client of the project to discuss the role of each team member
- stand-up meeting
- breakfast meeting
- off-site meeting
Since a meeting can be held once or often, the meeting organizer has to determine the repetition and frequency of occurrence of the meeting. Options generally include the following:
- A ''one-time meeting'' is the most common meeting type and covers events that are self-contained. While they may repeat often, the individual meeting is the entirety of the event. This can include a 2006 conference. The 2007 version of the conference is a stand-alone meeting event.
- A ''recurring meeting'' is a meeting that recurs periodically, such as an every Monday staff meeting from 9:00AM to 9:30 AM. The meeting organizer wants the participants to be at the meeting on a constant and repetitive basis. A recurring meeting can be ongoing, such as a weekly team meeting, or have an end date, such as a 5 week training meeting, held every Friday afternoon.
- A ''series meeting'' is like a recurring meeting, but the details differ from meeting to meeting. One example of a series meeting is a monthly "lunch and learn" event at a company, church, club or organization. The placeholder is the same, but the agenda and topics to be covered vary. This is more of a recurring meeting with the details to be determined.
Merianne Liteman, Sheila Campbell, Jeffrey Liteman, Retreats that Work: Everything You Need to Know About Planning and Leading Great Offsites, Expanded Edition, ISBN 0-7879-8275-X
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