h as allocating a start time and a finish time for each topic which is nonsensical. Having attended more meetings than I care to remember either as a participant or in the chair, I have learnt what works for me not that it will necessarily work for you. Timing, duration, venue Meetings should be held at the same time every week/month (preferably not fortnightly) and held at the same venue. The meeting should have a start and finish time. Agenda An agenda is only necessary for the first meeting. Thereafter, the minutes become the agenda with new points added at the bottom of the minutes. Content The meeting content should be logical. Don’t mix items that are worlds apart e.g. Finance with visual merchandising. Meetings to discuss past results or anything historical should be avoided. The statistics say that we spend 80 per cent of our time discussing the past, which should rather be 20 per cent, with 80 per cent discussing the future. Attendees The attendees should be the same each meeting. Only those who can make things happen should attend. Anyone else can be copied with the minutes if necessary. Cost There is no such thing as a free lunch. Nor is there such a thing as a free meeting. Take a few minutes to guesstimate the salaries of those who are attending a meeting plus the lost opportunity costs. You may be surprised. Perhaps make meetings a cost centre in the P&L. Deliverables If there are no deliverables planned, why have a meeting? Deliverables that are planned should be clearly articulated at the beginning of each meeting – “Today the deliverable(s) from this meeting are as follows:”. Minutes Minutes should be brutal, succinct, to the point, and focused on actionable points. What was discussed at the meeting should not appear in the minutes. If people want to make notes during the meeting, that is up to them. My preferred format for minutes is as follows: Non-performance Attendees will be required to deliver what they have committed to, on time, every time. The chairman of the meeting should err on the side of tolerance, giving people as much time within reason, to deliver. The culture of meetings should be that it is a sin to commit and not deliver on time. Peer pressure will help in this regard. Loopholes and wriggle room should be avoided. A little trick to be aware of – an item is promised two months down the track. A week before due date, someone (usually the person to deliver) challenges the need for the item having ever been considered. A little help from colleagues and the item is deleted. Simple and effective. There are probably heaps of other points that can be added but the few detailed above have certainly worked for many years. Stuart Bennie is a retail consultant at Impact Retailing and can be contacted at stuart@impactretailing.com.au or 0414 631 702.