Discussion Board Response

- Does it demonstrate that you have done appropriate reading on the topic?

· What are your views as to why work meetings are often dreaded?

I think one of the main reasons meetings are dreaded is because people consider it a waste of time. Not only do people already have plenty of work to do, they now have to take 30 to 60 minutes to not be doing their work. Interrupting their work can also cause them to take longer to get back into it or remember where they left off. They feel that the information they get is not worth the time. As Rue (n.d.) had said in his article: “the perceived value of the return in attending meetings isn’t worth the investment of time for many participants”. I also feel a lot of meetings can be replaced with an email.

· What do you think is the most common reason for ineffective meetings? 

In my personal and professional experience, I think that not having an agenda can make a meeting ineffective. An agenda is like a guide to how a meeting will flow. It “needs to communicate the what, why, when and who (the Ws) of a meeting” (Hynes & Veltsos, 2019). A meeting can easily go off track with cross talk or someone is reminded of something else on their mind. Of course it also depends on the amount of people expected in the meeting and if there is only going to be one or two topics. 

· What experience do you have with ineffective meetings?  Provide examples. 

An ineffective meeting that is common to me is my department's Monday morning huddle. We don’t meet in an office but on Skype due to the handful of staff located off-site. We also do have an agenda that everyone can review before the meeting and during. However, it is usually only the person talking about a certain subject that talks and there is not a lot of engagement from the rest of the team. One problem with being virtual is that while the meeting is going on, you are at your own computer so you can easily get sidetracked by email or another project you need to be working on. I usually receive at least two emails from coworkers during the meeting, which clearly shows they are multi-tasking and not committing their time to the meeting. There is no post-meeting evaluation, but at least someone takes notes so that we can refer back to the topics discussed if we forgot some details. 

· Do you think post-meeting evaluations, as described in the assigned reading, would be beneficial? 

I think the benefits of a post-meeting evaluation depends on the type of meeting and what was talked about. If it was a meeting with a few people, the evaluation wouldn’t be appropriate as those colleagues could communicate what is going good or bad through email or in person afterwards. As for larger groups, it would be a good idea for evaluations. It would make the department or group feel that their voice is being heard for making the company or department successful and productive. 

· Under what circumstances do you think they would be beneficial?  Explain

Post-meeting evaluations are beneficial when you need to know how well your information was received and retained by the group.  I have had experience with workshops that were focusing on one major topic that lasted a few hours. The speaker was engaging and the content was interesting. At the end, an evaluation form was handed out asking questions such as what was good, what was bad, what is something you’ll bring back to your department. They also ask what additional workshops people would like to see. It’s nice to see a company that caters its information to the workers and not just have content to share with no feedback allowed. 

Works Cited

Rue, B. (n.d.). Evaluate your meetings’ effectiveness. Retrieved from