Meetings are indeed an indispensable aspect of a business operation as much as in many other activities. The rising number of conferences, seminars and expositions stand testimony to the need for bringing groups of people together for intellectual exchange of ideas, business issues, information, and a host of other reasons. In a highly globalized world, meetings indeed have become the order of the day.

Whatever be the nature of meetings, they all call for adequate preparation and astute leadership. You have to give sufficient time to the participants of a meeting before it is convened. After a meeting time and place are decided, work clearly on the agenda of the meeting. Write down the objectives of the meeting and plan on the decided course for the meeting.

Once the structure of the meting is outlined, you have to choose the relevant participants for the meeting. You have to ensure that only pertinent managers, contributors, decision-makers and performers need to be included in the meeting. After finalizing the entire scheme of the meeting, send the appropriate details of the place, date, agenda and goals of the meeting. This will help the participants to prepare for the meeting and if need be, give their inputs before the meeting so they be included in the agenda.

The next step in the process is managing the meeting. A clear time frame for each of the agenda should be set, giving ample scope for some extension while ensuring the meeting is not stretched beyond a certain point. After starting the discussion, you should allow for a free play of ideas and views. While there can be healthy arguments and counter views, it should not run into free-for-all. There should be no personality clashes or dominance of one person to the exclusion of others. It should allow a healthy debate, and generate meaningful ideas and opinions.

At the end of each agenda, you should summarize the discussions ensued, assign responsibilities and note for any follow-up action. It would be ideal to make minutes of the meeting so it could serve as a record to monitor and review the progress in the next meeting. The minutes can be simple and concise, and must be circulated to all the participants. The success of a meeting can be gauged from the involvement and useful contribution and action of the participants, which will set the agenda for the next course of meeting.

How Mind Maps can come into play in a Meeting is in the preparation part of it. Right from setting the goal, agenda, persons to be included, the possible questions anticipated and so on and so forth, Mind Maps indeed excellently meet the requirements. By tackling different aspects of the meeting under different heads, a thorough analysis can be done on each aspect of the preparatory exercises. Even such minute details as assigning time and responsibility and the duration for each agenda can all be very easily included in the Mind Maps.

Since Mind Maps encourage free flow of idea, and associations, they trigger new agendas and avenues for action and follow through. By exploring every aspect of the meeting in Mind Maps, you will be able to bring meticulousness to the whole process. Also, they provide a comprehensive picture, which helps you to have greater control over the entire meeting process.

Mind Maps also allow for improvising and including any creative solutions or side issues, which can never be captured in a regular list type of preparation. That is the reason why Mind Maps are a great tool and find easy applications not just for meetings but in a whole range of other activities as well. Try them for your size and you will discover its true value.

About the Author:

Dr. Vj Mariaraj is a Mind Map enthusiast and has been using Mind Maps for the past twelve years. He has created over 5650 Mind Maps. To learn more about mind mapping send an email to freemindmap@aweber.com He is the founder of BusinessBookMindMap.com that creates Mind Map Summaries of Business Books. To learn more visit http://BusinessBookMindMap.com/mind-map.php?ea21