6 Tips For Getting The Most Out Of Your Meetings:

Tip #1. Decide Whether You Need A Meeting: In most cases, meetings are the cornerstone of your business' organization and company-wide unity. But in some cases, when a project or assignment's parameters have already been established and discussed at length, having a meeting might only cut into time better spent working on the project at hand. So depending on what kind of week your business is having or what the workload is like, your first decision may be whether to even hold a meeting in the first place.
Tip #2. Spend 15 Minutes Preparing For The Meeting: Preparation is vital to streamlining and maximizing your meeting time. If you hold meetings at roughly the same time each day for roughly the same length of time, employee preparation would immensely improve the meeting's productivity. At least 15 minutes before the meeting, employees should write out a list of their goals, objectives, needs and wants so that when it comes time to meet they're ready to hit the ground running.
Tip #3. Encourage Participation From Everyone: Part of being an effective leader in the business world is recognizing your employees' strengths and weaknesses. But just because an employee isn't particularly strong in one area does not mean they aren't still a useful asset. For example, employees with less experience in sales or marketing may be able to provide a new or unique perspective that might not occur to seasoned pros. Similarly, casual readers might be confused by convoluted text on a website that made sense in the writer's mind.
Tip #4. Designate A Leader To Manage The Meeting: To get the most out of your daily production meetings you need to maintain order, structure and direction. Someone needs to step up to the challenge of facilitating the progress of production meetings -- the reading of goals and agendas and discussions about employee responsibilities. They also need to ensure participants remain positive and constructive. We recommend agreeing to a leadership rotation to avoid rigid, hierarchal structuring and to keep each production meeting fresh.
Tip #5. Rely On Employees' Pre-Meeting Preparation: As previously mentioned, preparation prior to a production meeting helps streamline the entire process. These written goals, agendas and requirements should form the framework of the production meeting's discussions and help give the meeting the structure and direction it needs to benefit your company. So hammer home the importance of employee preparation in order to keep your production meetings focused on what matters most.
Tip #6. Develop A Post-Meeting Follow-up Plan: The only way to truly get the most out of a meeting is to send a post-meeting e-mail check on the status of the project(s). Whatever method you choose, a meeting follow-up plan will help everyone stay focused on their responsibilities.

From Dale Carnegie Training.