Earlier this week I blogged about “ball” meetings – a very useful technique to run more effective meetings. Today, I want to tell you about another approach – “wall” meetings. In a wall meeting, no one can sit down; everyone participates in the meeting while standing, leaning up against the wall. For even more effectiveness, ensure that that there are no donuts available in the room either! 🙂 The premise behind this approach is that if people are not comfortable, they are more likely to get on with the matter at hand and move towards the intended result. Basically, the discomfort creates focus, which in some situations may be exactly what you need.
A wall meeting is particularly successful if you’re a small group and your meetings have a record of getting off track where people veer off into different issues and never really come to any final conclusions. And it’s also useful if you have a limited amount of time and want to get a problem resolved without delay.
So … what are your ideas? Given the number of meetings you likely attend, you’ve got to have some insight into what would make them more effective and efficient. Please share.
And, if you’re finding this discussion about effective meetings to be useful, here are some additional blog posts from the past on this topic.