How many meetings do you have a week that have a discernible title but don’t come with an effective meeting agenda or meeting objectives? Examples abound where the importance of meeting is stressed but the reasons through a clear meeting purpose and objectives are not shared prior to the meeting.
Do you remember back to when you learned to drive a car? You took a class, you (hopefully) studied a book of rules, and your parents or other brave adults took you out for test runs. All to your benefit so when you walked in for testing, you were prepared to take the written and driving tests. You were ready and able to accommodate the instructions quickly and effectively because you had information in advance to take on the challenge.
Similarly to learning how to drive, being prepared by understanding the meaning and importance of meeting is critical to you and the other guests so you can use your time together with greater efficiency and success.
What is meeting objective setting?
Setting meeting goals is the end result of thinking through the aims and objectives of company meetings. The main question you should ask yourself when creating a meeting is, “why am I asking everyone to meet?” If you cannot articulate this question into words that meeting guests can understand, it may mean you need to rethink this function – meeting together about nothing, and whether the meeting should be scheduled when the reason is clear.
However, if you can translate the reason into a goal, then whether you are setting objective of operations meetings, objectives of holding meetings, setting team meeting objectives, identifying the purpose of management meetings, or creating objectives for client meetings, you will be able to create a framework that will help prepare guests to be ready to get work done.
Docket offers a free trial, so you can start putting meeting objectives to work today.
How do you write an objective for a meeting?
When trying to understand how to set an objective for a meeting, an objective should be a clear statement of what you hope to accomplish. Meeting purpose examples or meeting purpose statement examples may look something like this:
- “The purpose of this meeting is to….”
- “The goal of this session is so we can…”
- “The objective we are striving for is to…”
No matter which meeting objectives template you use, each should be followed by what you are looking to walk away with such as:
- “…create 3 ideas we can explore to improve our process.”
- “…estimate the issue at hand so we can provide the customer with an update by the end of the day.”
- “…design a basic framework that each department can use to drive their research.”
As you can see, each statement and desired result articulates exactly what is expected from meeting participants.
Setting objectives based on types of meetings
There are many types of meetings one can lead and when setting objectives that identify the purpose of information sharing meetings, the purpose of departmental meetings, or creating sales force objectives, it is crucial to know your audience so that you can develop the right agenda rather than walking into a room and trying out out-of-the-box sales meeting ideas. If you want to get something done, take the time upfront to set objectives that are best for the audience.
Setting team meeting objectives examples
When you think about the benefits of staff meetings, there are many reasons from helping the team succeed, informing them with critical updates, and encouraging teamwork and team building…one of the main reasons as to why have staff meetings.
But think about how to improve staff meetings…many of which are casually led so as to not impose structure or formality when so many other things the staff does is formalized. But it does an injustice to the time and expense of the team meeting if an agenda or objective is not clearly stated. While it is okay to meet and have fun, be sure that the time used during a staff meeting supports a clearly defined objective.
Setting sales objectives examples
The roles and objectives of sales meetings can be different based on the types of sales meetings you are leading. A sales strategy meeting agenda lends itself to a management audience focused on planning of sales objectives and strategies in contrast to sales goals examples where defined metrics may be shared among a new sales team. Or conference goals and objectives samples for a sales marketing team who will be preparing for a show.
Sales meeting objectives examples or business meeting objectives examples should be refined to speak directly to the specific sales audience so they can have confidence in what is expected of them.
Following the agenda to the objective
Once the objective has been created, the agenda items should support the objective. The reason for an agenda and purpose of meeting minutes is to provide structure and guardrails for a meeting to follow so that when it is over, you can ask, “did this meeting meet its objective?” Sharing the agenda prior to the meeting is a critical step in helping all guests be prepared. You can use a meeting tool like Docket to build your objective and agenda and share a professional notification to meeting guests to preview and prepare for the meeting. Docket offers a free trial, so you can start putting meeting objectives to work today.
Setting expectations in all meetings
In order to make objective setting a habit, you could create a purpose of meeting PDF, guidelines for business meeting PDF, or meetings in business communication PDF that share recommendations for those on your team to follow. Or to simplify this further, use a meeting tool like Docket to create a meeting template containing goals and agenda items that can be used among your team for a consistent and purposeful meeting framework.
