"Meetings bloody meetings!" Meetings, the place where people take minutes and waste hours! These are just two critical views of meetings as being an unpleasant and unproductive part of organisational life. Given that a meeting is important, and that's not always the case, the following 9 steps are guaranteed to make your meetings more effective.

1. Purpose. Why are you having this meeting? If you are having trouble answering this question you might want to question the need to have it at all. So much time is wasted by people attending meetings to which they contribute little if anything and from which they get no value (perhaps other than to catch up on lost sleep).

2. Prioritised. If the meeting is necessary, the next step is to make sure that the items on the agenda are prioritised in terms of their importance to those present. By doing this if the meeting does run out of time (see punctual below), it will be the less important items that will be left off or rescheduled to a later date.

3. People - Ensure that the 'right' people attend. This means only those who are decision makers, key influencers or have a significant input to the meeting should be invited. Most organisations have professional meeting goers, people who spend much of their time attending meetings in order to avoid doing any real work. Also, avoid inviting anyone looking to jump on a personal issue as they will almost certainly hijack the meeting.

4. Prepared. Those who do attend should ensure that they are properly prepared and bring along copies of a report or a product that the meeting needs to have demonstrated. Many hours are lost by attendees being unprepared. It is inconsiderate and a waste of valuable time.

5. Punctual. Perhaps the most radical suggestion of all is to start and finish on time! Organisations develop a meetings culture and it often becomes acceptable to turn up late and expect the other attendees to wait for your grand entrance. Why not reward the attendees who have made the effort to get there on time and punish the ones who are late, not the other way around? But, if you do start on time you must finish on time (see prioritised above).

6. Process. How is the meeting going to be managed? Some meetings have a chairperson through whom all points are made. Some others have a facilitator or moderator who maintains a looser grip on proceedings but who still controls the meeting dynamics. Some effective meetings have delegates sign up to a set of groundrules.

7. Participative. To get the most from the meeting everyone present should be encouraged to have their say. There will doubtless be those who want to have more than their say and some who will not feel comfortable competing for airtime. The Chair or facilitator must ensure that the quieter ones have their say as it is often the case that they have a great idea that can unlock a problem. Also, the meeting should not be swayed by those who talk loudly and confidently but who might well be plain wrong!

8. Polite. The flip side of people being encouraged to participate is that they should also be encouraged to listen to the other members of the meeting and not interrupt or hold side meetings.

9. Plans. Finally, the output of the meetings in the form of action plans must be agreed and circulated. Ensure that anyone who has been tasked to complete an action but who was not present at the meeting understands what needs doing and why they have been selected.