Facilitating Meetings Effectively

Overview

Effective facilitators know how to take charge of meetings and lead groups toward successfully completing their work objectives. In this course, you will strategically plan meetings and create formal agendas, lead groups to generate new ideas through brainstorming events, and help people work through facilitated difficult sessions. You will also further develop your facilitation skills by leading virtual meetings and even moderating international sessions. This course is designed for managers, supervisors, team leaders, or anyone who leads meetings as part of their job and wants to learn how to become a more effective meeting facilitator. In this course, you will develop the skills to facilitate meetings effectively. You will: • Build a foundation for a successful meeting. • Prepare for a meeting. • Set the stage for a meeting. • Facilitate a meeting. • Facilitate a specialized meeting.

Syllabus

Building a Foundation for Successful Meetings

Meetings are a fact of business life, and all of us have attended meetings we judged to be successful, as well as meetings we felt were a waste of time. A goal of every meeting facilitator should be to produce the first kind of meeting and to avoid the second kind.

Preparing for a Meeting

Effective facilitators know how to take charge of meetings and guide the participants toward effectively addressing the topics at hand, focusing on the items to be discussed and meeting their defined objectives. You want to be able to prepare for a meeting carefully and with a strategy in mind, so that you can lead the group toward achieving whatever they need to accomplish. In this lesson, you will learn how to prepare for a meeting.

Setting the Stage for a Meeting

You have identified techniques for laying the groundwork for an effective meeting by clarifying the purpose of the meeting, identifying the participants, and creating your agenda. Now you will set the stage for your meeting by establishing a meeting climate and learning how to resolve challenging situations that might arise during the meeting.

Facilitating a Meeting

Effective facilitators know how to take charge of work sessions and lead others to greater productivity. You want to lead a meeting efficiently and with purpose, so that you can help your team members achieve their stated goals. You want to master the skills necessary to lead a session effectively, make sound decisions, publish meeting minutes, and close a meeting.

Facilitating Specialized Meetings

You have learned how to create a positive meeting environment, lead a meeting, resolve challenging situations that arise, and make sound decisions during a meeting. You also learned how to create and publish effective meeting minutes for stakeholders, and how to close a meeting. Now you will look at several special types of meetings.