Closing the meeting
As you close your meeting, there is one very important question you should ask yourself, and even the participants: were the meeting objectives accomplished? And there is even one more point to consider: what should be done now that the meeting is over?
If no decisions were made during the meeting and no action items were assigned, then why was the meeting scheduled in the first place? Effective meetings also require effective ways of making sure the time wasn't wasted. The following are some suggestions on how to close your meetings:
Quickly review all the decisions that were made either by writing them down on a whiteboard or by calling them out loud.
Review all action items assigned during the meeting, their owners, and deadlines. It might be good if instead of reading them out loud, you ask individual participants to share their specific action items with the team, which ensures they are paying attention and agree with what was assigned to them.
Agree on the next steps...
