Defence

Coordination and Public Affairs

What's your agenda? Meetings in Defence

Not surprisingly, a recent survey discovered that a lot of people in Defence really don't like attending meetings. Why? People commented that some meetings are a waste of their time, some waste effort, some achieve little, while others can be dominated or controlled by a few "loud" participants. Many meetings seem to go over the same things time and time again, while others never actually seem to reach any decisions.

In large and complex organisations like Defence meetings are an essential management tool for ensuring best practice in corporate governance and for emphasising the importance of consultation and shared ownership. Meetings can also be invaluable for encouraging a whole-of- Defence perspective and identifying better ways of tackling an issue.

Meetings are an opportunity to share information, both internally and across portfolios, and to inform good decisions. For this reason it is essential that we run our meetings as efficiently and effectively as possible.

The survey conducted in Defence in 2004 found a range of common concerns regarding meetings including:

• the competence of chairpersons or convenors of the meeting;
• meetings going beyond their advertised finish time;
• meetings that were unnecessary - decisions could and should have been made by other means; and
• meetings that lacked an accepted and rigorous agenda-driven process.

At the request of the Secretary of Defence, Mr Ric Smith, Corporate Governance and Renewal Branch, in conjunction with changedrivers Pty Ltd, has put together some guidance on this vexed issue, specifically for Defence.

A user-friendly, central resource has been created to improve the effectiveness of everyday workplace meetings in Defence. The Meetings in Defence package within the CPA Manual (available at http://intranet.defence.gov.au/cpa/manual/cgr/meetings) is designed to help you get more out of meetings, and ensure that your meetings achieve results not process outcomes.

This guidance includes tips, guidelines and templates that have been developed to help improve the effectiveness of the working level meetings held in Defence each day. It will even help you ascertain whether a meeting is really needed.

To be effective, meetings must start with a purpose and an expected outcome that will follow from the meeting. Once you have established that a meeting is required, the guidelines and templates will assist you to develop a purpose and ensure outcomes are also established. Some of the other elements that make this guidance particularly useful are how to deal with things that can go wrong, priority areas of concern within Defence, and the fundamentals of better meetings.

Just like other innovations (the wheel, for example, or even the home delivered pizza!) this guidance is commonsense and simple to use. If used responsibly, it will assist you to get the most out of your meetings.

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