Albeit the meeting only consisted of three people, the experience is meaningful and we certainly have a lot to away from this exposure. For the first time, I was given a chance to be the leader of the meeting and even though the meeting went on smoothly, I felt that we certainly have a lot to improve on in terms of making the meeting more effective and purposeful.
My first observation is that there were frequent occurrences of random pauses during the discussion. Sometimes, all of us will be keeping quiet, thinking of how to carry on with the discussion. This was partially a fault of mine as I felt that I could have put in more control to direct the flow of the discussions; instead of waiting for replies from the rest. Preparing a more detailed agenda regarding the points to be discussed can be helpful in this case.
Secondly, I observe that we can be too informal and comfortable at times. While we did not stray away from the main points, sometimes our tone can get informal and casual. While a tinge of humour can have a positive effect of keeping the mind fresh, people tend to slack off if they get too relaxed with the situation. Setting down some house rules to govern the manner in which the meeting will be run could be useful. The leader of the meeting could also start with an appropriate tone to kick start the meeting at the correct note.
Also, I felt that there were also considerable merits for our meeting. Firstly, we were ahead of the scheduled timing and were left with an ample amount of time towards the end. Secondly, we kept ourselves focused on the task at hand and hence were able to make quick decisions for our project. All in all, everybody was sure of their task and aware of what they were supposed to do and hence meant that the meeting has fulfilled its purpose adequately.
Hi Yifan,
ReplyDeleteOur meeting was definitely flawed. We really have to improve our next meeting. Anyway, you made some great observations. I guess I was not well-prepared enough for the meeting. We all got lost somewhere in our discussion. It is my first programming project and I did not understand the syntax well enough to provide any constructive views. I guessed I should have read up more and try to understand the project requirements better. I was the facilitator for the meeting and looking back, I was pretty inefficient. I agree with you about the part being too informal. We were too relaxed and it side-tracked us. We definitely have to cut down the frequent pauses. It wasted too much of our time. Since, we are able to identify our problems, let’s work together to improve our future meetings.
Look forward to our next meeting! Hope our project is a great success.
With Regards,
Weilong
Looks like your first meeting went off very smoothly! Hope your tasks were completed on time:)
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you about preparing an agenda in advance before the meeting so that each member can have a inkling about what is going to be covered in the meeting and can prepare himself and his ideas in advance. This can really help avoid the random pauses too, because people will no longer be lost during the meeting.