Running Meetings and Panels

Most meetings are bad on purpose-lessness

Everyone complains about meetings, and they're right to: most are too long, wander, decide nothing, and leave everyone unsure what happens next. But meetings aren't inherently bad — badly run meetings are, and the difference between a wasteful hour and a useful twenty minutes is almost entirely the person running it. That can be you, and running one well is a visible, respected skill that most people never learn.

The single root cause of bad meetings is no clear purpose. A meeting called "to discuss the project" has no target, so it drifts, and drifting is what everyone hates. A meeting called "to decide X" has a finish line. This lesson is how to run a meeting that respects everyone's time — purpose, agenda, facilitation, and clear outcomes — plus the specific job of moderating a panel.