Meetings can be so hazardous to the productivity of an organization that the CIA’s precursor, the OSS, included them in their sabotage field manual. While we may not be called upon to thwart direct enemy action, as meeting facilitators we should run the kinds of meetings we would want to attend. There are many reasons meetings are ineffective, most of which can only be mitigated before the meeting happens. This talk will give you things to consider and do to prepare for a meeting.

Attendees will leave with some techniques they can use today to make the most of their precious time. This is primarily aimed at anyone running a meeting. Facilitators, scrum masters, team leads, and managers most often do this, but anyone attending a meeting could benefit. To misquote Arleen Lorrance, “be the meeting you want to see happen.”