third should be a period of winding down. The report rule suggests that all reports given to meeting participants should contain an executive summary. This eliminates the need of having to look through the entire report to find information. The agenda integrity rule states that all agenda items must be discussed. This assures that all topics are covered. The temporal integrity rule states that all meetings should begin and end at the scheduled times. The last rule to remember is the minutes rule. This rule recommends that the minutes should have the following three characteristics: h Minutes are relevant to the agenda h Minutes are based on content in the agenda h Minutes reflect the decisions, conclusions and actions that were taken during the meeting. The final step in conducting effective team meetings represents the process meetings should take. There are seven steps that can be followed to conduct an efficient meeting. The first step is to review the agenda and tasks that need to be completed as well as discussing any progress made on previous meetings. The second step is the introductions. All of the participants should be properly introduced to help everyone feel more comfortable with each other. The third step involves developing and implementing the ground rules. The appropriate and inappropriate participation of the group should be discussed. Participants should also discuss and agree on the manner in which decisions should be made. This should result from a vote: majority rule, straw vote, consensus, or ranking among others. The fourth step is listening to reports. These reports should come from those participants who had pre-assigned presentations. This helps to reduce the presenters apprehension and allows them to focus on the rest of the topics discussed in the meeting. The fifth step deals with displays. Displays help to keep participants interested in the meeting and assists in simplifying complex i...
