[steering] meetings: why, how, etc.

[Martin Burns]

On Friday, June 28, 2002, at 08:48  pm, Marlene Bruce wrote:

> Why not just have everyone type a
> report into an email and send it to one another ahead of time?

Sounds like a job for aWikiPage...

> Well,
> there's an important reason why pre-sending reports isn't necessarily
> a good idea: there's a high likelihood that people won't ever get
> around to reading them. It's been my experience that many people
> won't even read a pre-sent agenda before a meeting. So while a report
> should be thought out before a meeting, it shouldn't be pre-sent.

I think it would be useful to have reports pre-available if at all
possible, to allow not just the reps but also the members of other
groups to know what's going on elsewhere and make their feelings known
to their reps as part of the input to the discussion.

So if group A is doing something which will cause group B trouble down
the line, it'll be helpful for the group B reps to have been briefed by
their group members ahead of having it bounced on them in a meeting and
having to make spot-decisions. That way, the reps can better represent
their groups.

And of course, reports should be post-available as a record of what's
happened.

> Yes, sitting through reporting during a meeting will be tedious, but
> it ensures that everyone will actually hear what's being reported on.

Perhaps the reporting during a meeting could be a summary with more
detail pre-available.

Cheers
Martin
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