The key to a successful business meeting is proper planning. To ensure that your meeting objectives are covered, go back to the basic planning procedures before the event and make sure all bases are covered. Your meeting will flow much easier when you are properly prepared.

Firstly, you must know the aims, objectives or the exact reason you need to have the meeting. In accomplishing this, you may want to spend some time writing down the topics that you need to address during the meeting. If you are not using your outlined objectives as a handout for the meeting, it does not need to be in formal order. If you plan to use the proposed objectives of the meeting as hand out, make sure it is in concise order and make enough copies for your expected participants. You may want to mail, fax or e-mail it out before the meeting. This allows them to review it and arrive prepared to deal and discuss with the matters arising.

Here are some tips to consider when planning your next business meeting: Make an agenda: One of the easiest ways to create an effective agenda is use the information from your outlined objectives. Agendas vary in form and order.

An informative agenda includes the date and time the meeting will start and finish, and regrets submitted by those unable to attend. You might want to write down the amount of time you want to spend on each item. It is important to stick to your agenda and to start and end the meeting on time. Don't wait on latecomers. Unfortunately, this is a growing problem. I have observed that people are more and more frequently arriving late to meetings. They will just stroll in; seemingly totally unaware of the disruption and disrespect caused.

If they know you will wait, they will not make an effort to arrive on time; so don't wait. Personally, I like to start my meetings at odd times. Instead of scheduling a meeting exactly at noonday, try scheduling the meeting to start at 12.10 p.m. This sometimes works because the attendees are not pressured to meet exactly on the hour. Passing out your agenda is suggested, but for short informal meetings the agenda may be used only as a guide to cover your meeting goals.

Stand-up meetings: Stand-up meetings are wonderful for short meetings and generally lend themselves to maintaining the attendees attention. However, I would not suggest holding a stand-up meeting for more than 25 minutes; anytime longer and you are bound to lose your audiences' attention.

Meeting notification: Send a meeting notification circular out and follow up to make sure that all invited are aware of the meeting. Include the date, time, location and topic of meeting in the notification.

Meeting location: Select the best available location to hold your meeting. In selecting a good location, consider the size of your expected attendants.

Coordinate the room to accommodate the meeting style. For instance, if an informal discussion is to be a part of your meeting, to entice participation, don't stand at the podium. Standing at a podium, looking down on your audience tends to intimidate and may not entice active participation.

Be sure that your objectives are achieved at your meeting. To assure accountability, write down minutes of the meeting. Your minutes don't have to be extensive. Just a brief summary of who, when, and what needs to be done is sufficient.

A business meeting generally deals with addressing a particular need, or to share information, ideas, pressing problems, and/or changes. Make sure your meeting has a purpose and stick to it. Keeping focused on your meeting objectives will ensure they are addressed. Don't stray into business not on the agenda. You can't accomplish all the concerns in just one gathering, so don't try. Doing so will only get you off track, use up precious time and in the end not accomplishing your initial concerns for calling the meeting in the first place.

Planning ahead wisely will ensure your meeting goals are met.

Cindy Swan is a Professional Organizer with over 20 years of office administrative managerial experience and a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers. Her column appears in the business section on the first and third Thursday of each month. Address inquiries to Cindy Swan, PO Box 304 St. George's GEBX or email her at bermudagolf yibl.bm