INTRODUCTION

A meeting can be an incredibly useful arena on a project. In a well- conducted meeting you can smash through obstacles, resolve issues and make decisions, and come out feeling like you really moved the project forward and that in paying today's salary, your employer really got value for his money. How many of us, though, attend meetings which:

• drift along

• appear to have no purpose

• have no agenda so you have no idea whether or not you're making progress if you didn't need to be there at all?

• appear as if you didn't need to be there at all?

This chapter contains a quick way to find out if the meeting you're being asked to attend will be such a meeting, and some hints about how meetings should be run so as to be of the effective kind described in the opening paragraph.