What is meeting in general?
- Definition of meeting
A meeting refers to a gathering with a specific agenda and not just mere gathering of people casually talking to each other. Meetings may occur face-to-face or virtually, as mediated by communications technology, such as a telephone conference call, a skyped conference call or a videoconference. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a meeting as "an act or process of coming together" - for example "as [...] an assembly for a common purpose [...]".
Meeting planners and other meeting professionals may use the term "meeting" to denote an event booked at a hotel, convention center or any other venue dedicated to such gatherings.
Anthropologist Helen B. Schwartzman defines a meeting as "a communicative event involving three or more people who agree to assemble for a purpose ostensibly related to the functioning of an organization or group." For her, meetings are characterized by "multiparty talk that is episodic in nature, and participants either develop or use specific conventions for regulating this talk."
- Types of meeting
The term "meeting" may refer to a lecture (one presentation), seminar (typically several presentations, small audience, one day), conference (mid-size, one or more days), congress (large, several days), exhibition or trade show (with staffed stands being visited by passers-by), workshop (smaller, with active participants), training course, team-building session and kick-off event.
There are many types of meeting, such as:
a. General meeting
A general meeting is meeting that involves a group of at least between 10-40 people, usually talking about plans in future for every person who attended the meeting. Shown above is an all-girl high school meeting after the class.
b. Corporate meeting
c. Diplomatic meeting
Meetings have always been a central element of management, and interest in their optimization grew in the early 21st century with the increasing number of meetings in professional environments. This interest grew significantly after the global COVID-19 crisis, which led many organizations to adopt hybrid work modes. Previously, various economic sectors had initiated efforts to define and formalize meeting practices.
The principles and practices of meeting science have been adopted beyond the corporate world and integrated into diverse organizations, including local governments, military, associations, and foundations.
Simultaneously, a related field called facilitation emerged. Unlike meeting science, which aims to make operators autonomous in applying best practices, facilitation involves methodological experts who intervene in a targeted manner during events to improve efficiency.
In the United States, meeting science emerged in the 2000s. Steven Rogelberg and Joseph Allen are pioneers, laying the foundations of this scientific discipline. Their academic work is summarized in The Cambridge handbook of meeting science,[6] which explores various meeting aspects, including the meeting recovery syndrome, a concept that explores to the conditions individuals experience post-meeting.
Many American authors have published works on meeting science. Rogelberg's The surprising science of meetings offers insights into agenda setting, participant engagement, and decision processes.[8] Joseph Allen, a student of Rogelberg, continues research at the University of Utah on entitativity, a concept developed by Donald T. Campbell in the 1960s. Allen has also written about remote meetings in the context of hybrid work. Patrick Lencioni, in Death by meeting (2004), proposes a simple committee model for executive teams, describing necessary rituals. Elise Keith, in Where the action is, presents a periodic table of meetings with 16 different formats. Paul Axtell, in Meetings matter (2015), provides a humanistic perspective on meetings.
The Harvard Business Review is also a resource on meeting science, featuring articles by experts such as Roger Schwartz on effective agenda writing, Eunice Eun on reducing unnecessary meetings, Steven Rogelberg on improving meetings, Sabina Nawaz on creating norms for executive teams, and Paul Axtell on questions to improve meetings.
McKinsey has published articles offering insights on meeting organization and efficiency.
- Study areas
The meeting science explores various aspects of meetings:
a. Planning and structure: designing, defining objectives, structuring the agenda, and preparing meetings.
b. Group dynamics: analyzing participant interactions, roles, and behaviors.
c. Technologies and tools: impact of digital tools and communication technologies.
d. Productivity and efficiency: measuring productivity.
e. Participant satisfaction: surveys on participant satisfaction and engagement, and evaluating decisions and outcomes. Agile development approaches like return on time invested (ROTI) facilitate these practices.
- Methods
Meeting science uses various methodologies to improve practices:
a. Observation: analyzing behaviors and interactions during meetings.
b. Surveys: collecting data on participant perceptions and satisfaction.
c. Experiments: controlled conditions to test meeting techniques' effectiveness.
d. Training and transformation: training programs to adjust practices.
e. Governance: analyzing and adjusting committee structures for optimal efficiency.
Meeting science also integrates techniques to ensure participant engagement in remote and hybrid meetings, using digital tools for meeting design, facilitation, and evaluation. Since 2023, artificial intelligence (AI) offers new features for meetings, including agenda design, translation, transcription, and summary writing.
- Contexts
Meeting science can be applied to various contexts, including:
a. Team meetings
b. Executive and management committees
c. Project meetings
d. Steering committees
e. One-to-one meetings
f. All hands meetings
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