You have now followed step one, defining the purpose of the meeting. With that firmly in your mind, you can go about inviting the right people to this meeting.

This may include a board with oversight, stakeholders in a decision, interested parties but people not officially involved, people with expertise in an area to be covered, or anyone else you can think of.

Now, when I say anybody else you can think of, I would not suggest that you invite any one more than you need to. This is especially true if the meeting is going to involve discussion or debate. I am saying to keep people away…meeting in secret…but having to many people does not allow the stakeholders to give their say and increases the potential of getting sidetracked or bogged down in detail.

Depending on the meeting, you also might want to invite a facilitator. This is especially helpful (and necessary?) if the meeting is being called for the purpose of dealing with conflict that you are a central figure. When I have had these meetings, the times I have had a third party involved saved my bacon. When I have not, I have been forced to clean up issues after the meeting.

A few tips to think about for scheduling and inviting people to meetings.

If this meeting is tricky to schedule and of the non-standing variety, you can use a handy and simple web app called Doodle.  All you do is create a simple survey online, e-mail the URL of the survey to potential addendees, and your attendees will fill out the survey. Based on the results you will know best when to schedule the meeting. I have used it a couple of times and found it to be easy to set up as well as easy for the recipient to use.

I would invite them as soon as possible if the meeting is not a standing meeting. Then, send out at least one reminder about 3-5 days out. This last invitation should include the agenda for the meeting.

Finally, one note regarding that agenda. Sending the agenda will bring people to the meeting knowing what will be discussed and perhaps a bit more prepared to so do. A hint to consider….rather than making the agenda a file attachment, consider cutting and pasting the agenda into the body of your e-mail. I have found the people are more likely to read the content of an e-mail than they are to open an attachment. If you send the agenda via regular mail, include it on a separate sheet of paper if it does not fit onto the front page of the letter. Agendas on the back of a meeting reminder frequently get ignored. A second piece of paper will be quickly scanned.

We will talk more about the content of that agenda in the next step of Meeting Mastery.