Types of Business Meetings

List of Types of Business Meetings
By Christina Hamlett, eHow Contributor
List of Types of Business Meetings
Throughout your career life, you're likely to attend lots of meetings with your supervisors, peers
and subordinates. Although there are many different kinds and styles of meetings, they all serve
the same objective--to foster teamwork and help the business do a better job.
1.
2. Brainstorming Sessions
o "Think tank" meetings bring participants together to explore the available options for resolving a
current or potential problem. Everyone's ideas are heard, discussed, modified and debated, and
the solution that the majority agrees is the most practical is the one that gets chosen.
Status Updates
o Managers and line supervisors often hold weekly or monthly staff meetings as a forum to assess
each unit's progress and assign new tasks as well as identify declining sales or services issues
before they escalate into major problems. These meetings usually follow a written agenda and
participants are expected to be prepared.
Damage Control
o Whether it's a political campaign in a tailspin or a baby food company that's been forced to recall
a product because of contamination, it's critical that everyone be on the same page. Rather than
risk the press hearing 50 different versions of what happened, the purpose of a damage control
meeting is to verify the facts and script one reply that all participants will adhere to.
Personnel Meetings
o Personnel meetings take three forms. The first is an interview to hire someone and involves the
applicant and two to four people familiar with the job requirements. The second is an
administrative hearing for determining whether there are grounds for disciplinary actions or
dismissal. This involves the employee, his union rep, and individuals who have knowledge of the
case. The third is a staffing review to identify which divisions need more staff or can meet
budget cuts through furloughs and attrition.
Pitch Sessions
o When you're in the business of courting new clients, the colloquial term for a pitch session is a
"dog and pony show." The purpose is to present enough razzle-dazzle that will not only impress
the client but also demonstrate that you've researched her needs and are prepared to give her all
your attention. Conversely, vendors use pitch sessions on company decision makers to convince
them to carry their products.
Shareholder Meetings
o Investors like to know that their money and their trust haven't been misplaced, especially in a
shaky economy. A shareholder meeting is a large-scale forum in which annual reports are
distributed to members, who have the opportunity to hear what the board has to say about the
company's standing and future growth.
Start-Up Companies
o If it's a brand new company in the works, the early meetings will involve its main players and
focus on issues such as its structure and governing by-laws, financing, marketing, location,
insurance, licensing, and scope of products and services.


Types of Meetings
by STEVEN M. SMITH · 42 COMMENTS
4tweetsretweet
There are different types of meetings. Each type requires a different structures and supports a
different number of participants. For instance, a status (feedforward) meeting has no limit to the
number of participants while a decision-making meeting produces results faster with a small
number of participants.
If you want to help your teams have more effective meetings, set the participants expectations
about the meeting by stating in the agenda –
 the purpose of the meeting.
 the type of meeting
The typical meeting types are:
 problem-solving
 decision-making
 planning
 feedforward (status reporting and new information presentations)
 feedback (reacting and evaluating )
 combination meetings
For instance, the agenda states that you will be a participant in a problem-solving meeting to
scale the application so it supports 500 simultaneous users. That description makes it crystal
clear what you are there to do. And after you participate in a number of the same type of
meetings, you will know that meeting’s structure and your role.
Although it’s in the list, I don’t like combination meetings. Participants, in my experience, aren’t
as focused in a combination meeting; thus the results are poor. If you insist on combination
meetings, I suggest your break them into segments of different meeting types. Despite
segmentation, time management for a combination meeting is more difficult than a single type of
meeting because you have more than one purpose to achieve.
If you want to save yourself and your teammates time and effort, propose to management that the
purpose, type, and agenda of a meeting be clearly stated in the scheduling request for every
meeting.
Go the extra mile. Find out how participants rate the value of the meeting. Use that feedback to
constantly adapt the design of the meeting to produce greater value.