Meeting Facilitation Training – Learn How To Run Productive Meetings
Learn how to understand the elements of productive meetings, understand the cost of a meeting, consistently use a meeting process for greater success, and improve facilitation skills.
If there is one thing most organizations have in common with every other business regardless of their sector, size or mission is that employees probably attend a lot of meetings.
The statistics are staggering. Each day in the U.S. there are 25 million meetings. About 15% of an organization’s collective time is spent in meetings, and that percentage is growing.
On average, a middle manager can expect to spend about 35% of their time attending meetings while upper management spends at least half of their day, if not more, attending meetings.
Anecdotally, many report that their days are filled with back-to-back meetings that would not necessarily be a problem if people believed the meetings were productive.
They don’t.
Executives say that nearly 70% of the meetings they attend are unproductive and that good meeting facilitation is lacking. The major culprits:*
- meeting organizers don’t plan or have a structure for a meeting
- participants multi-task throughout the meeting
- virtual participants are not engaged
The fact that employees see meetings as unproductive is not new news. The problem is despite the blistering reviews; it seems that businesses don’t know how to change their meeting-intensive cultures.
That’s where TrainSmart can help! We provide organizations with effective meetings training.
TrainSMART’s running effective meetings training workshops offer practical and easy-to-implement strategies. By attending these workshops, participants will learn how to plan and make their meetings productive.
They will also learn how to reduce the number of meetings each employee attends and how to make the ones they do attend shorter, more engaging, and participative, and productive.
The Problem
- Lack of planning for effective meetings
- Unproductive meetings
- Unclear goals, purpose, and focus
- Meeting interruptions and tangents
- Lack of participation
- No decisions, action items, or follow-up
TrainSMART Solution
- Understand the elements of productive meetings
- Understand the cost of a meeting
- Consistently use a meeting process for greater success
- Improve facilitation skills
- Use various tools to assist with meeting effectiveness and follow-up
- Manage interruptions and stay focused
- Create an Action Plan
Meeting Facilitation Training Course Outline
- Elements of Productive Meetings
- The Cost of a Meeting: Justifying the meeting costs, identifying other ways to get the information
- The Meeting Process (in-person and virtual): Plan, Start, Facilitate, Close, Follow-up
- Planning: Setting Goals, Using an Agenda, Communicating Expectations, Identifying the Participants
- Starting: Restating goals, Setting Ground Rules, Assigning Roles, Appreciating Participants
- Facilitation Techniques: Encourage participation, Ask Questions, Manage Conflict, Staying Focused
- Facilitation Tools: The Parking Lot, Flip Charts, PowerPoint
- Web Conferencing Best Practices
- Closing: Summarizing the meeting, Assigning Action Items and Due Dates,
- Follow-up: Sending Meeting Notes, Adding follow-up dates on calendar, Accountability
- Applying Skills: Create an action plan
Group Training
Delivery Options
Effective Meeting Essentials is available in the following formats:
- Face-to-Face Half-Day Training Workshop
- Face-to-Face Full Day Training Workshop
- Multi-Session Webinar
- Live Virtual Instructor-led Training
Target Audience
- TrainSMART’s Effective Meeting Facilitation Face-to-Face Training is for managers, team leaders, facilitators, human resources, and anyone who is responsible for facilitating or attending meetings.
Live Online Instructor-Led Workshops
For Effective Meetings
How To Run Virtual Meetings
Using Zoom, Adobe Connect & MS Teams
Session Length Options: 90 minutes
In this session, we will review the fundamentals of using Zoom effectively. In addition, we will focus on the elements that are specific to running a successful virtual meeting.
Making Meetings Work
Session Length Options: 90 minutes, 3 hours, 4 hours
In this session, we’ll review the fundamentals of good meeting practices that apply to both in-person and virtual meetings. In addition, we’ll focus on the elements that are specific to running a successful virtual meeting.
Question This Page Answers
- What company’s provide meeting facilitation training?
- How to be a good meeting facilitator?
- What are the best practices for meeting facilitation?
- What is meeting facilitation?
- How to improve meeting facilitation skills?
- Who offers live online effective meeting training?
TrainSmart is a certified Woman-Owned Business Enterprise (2000) and a Woman Small Business (2015).
We have approximately 300 facilitators, professional development trainers, instructional designers, and content developers strategically located in the United States and around the world.
Training FAQs
Do you offer live online workshops?
TrainSMART offers live online instructor-led training workshops. Please contact us at 800-807-8030 ext. 1 or fill out the form below to discuss bringing our meeting facilitation workshop to your company today.
Ready to discuss your on-site meeting facilitation skills training for your team? Schedule a call 800-807-8030 ext. 1 or fill out the form so we can learn more about each other and determine if we are a good fit.