Meeting

A meeting is when two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal or business setting, but meetings also occur in a variety of other environments. Many various types of meetings exist.

This article is about meetings in general. For meetings in organizations that use parliamentary procedure, see Meeting (parliamentary procedure). For multi-event athletic competitions, see Track and field § Meetings.

Meetings are sometimes held around conference tables.

Definition

A meeting is a gathering of two or more people that has been convened for the purpose of achieving a common goal through verbal interaction, such as sharing information or reaching agreement.[1] Meetings may occur face-to-face or virtually, as mediated by communications technology, such as a telephone conference call, a skyped conference call or a videoconference. One Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a meeting as "an act or process of coming together" - for example "as [...] an assembly for a common purpose [...]".[2]

Meeting planners and other meeting professionals may use the term "meeting" to denote an event booked at a hotel, convention center or any other venue dedicated to such gatherings.[1][3]

Types of meetings

Meetings sometimes take place in conference rooms

First staff meeting of a new executive

Training meeting about sustainable design. The photo shows a training meeting with factory workers in a stainless-steel ecodesign company in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The term "meeting" may refer to a lecture (one presentation), seminar (typically several presentations, small audience, one day), conference (mid-size, one or more days), congress (large, several days), exhibition or trade show (with manned stands being visited by passers-by), workshop (smaller, with active participants), training course, team-building session and kick-off event.

Common types of meeting include:

• Committee meeting, a coming-together of a defined subset of an organization
• Investigative meeting, generally when conducting a pre-interview, exit interview or a meeting among the investigator and representative
• Kickoff meeting, the first meeting with a project team and the client of the project to discuss the role of each team-member[4]
• Town hall meeting, an informal public gathering.
• Work meeting, which produces a product or intangible result such as a decision; compare working group.

• Board meeting, a meeting of the board of directors of an organization
• Management meeting, a meeting among managers
• Staff meeting, typically a meeting between a manager and those that report to that manager
• Team meeting, in project contexts - a meeting among colleagues working on various aspects of a team project.

Other varieties include breakfast meetings[5] off-site meetings (or Awayday meetings in the UK), and "stand-up meetings" where participants stand up to encourage brevity.

Since a meeting can be held once or often, the meeting organizer has to determine the repetition and frequency of occurrence of the meeting: one-time, recurring meeting, or a series meeting such as a monthly "lunch and learn" event at a company, church, club or organization in which the placeholder is the same, but the agenda and topics to be covered vary. In Russian, a "flying meeting" (Russian: летучий митинг, romanized: letuchij miting) is a hastily-called brief meeting.[6]

See also

• Action item
• Agenda
  • Online diary planner
• BarCamp
• Conference room
• Event management
• Facilitation (business)
• International Congress Calendar
• Meeting point
• Meeting scheduling tool
• Minutes
• Official trip
• Organizational development
• Parliamentary procedure
• Quaker meeting for worship
• Robert's Rules of Order
• Scientific meeting
• Town meeting
• Task list
• Unconference

References

1. Meeting and Convention Planners. (2009, December 17). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved April 21, 2010.
2. Meeting – Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (n.d.). Dictionary and Thesaurus – Merriam-Webster Online. Retrieved 2016-02-04.
3. Montgomery, Rhonda J.; Strick, Sandra K. (1994). Meetings, Conventions, and Expositions: An Introduction to the Industry. New York: Wiley. ISBN 9780471284390. Retrieved 2016-02-04.
4. Sullivant, J. (2007). Strategies for Protecting National Critical Infrastructure Assets: A Focus on Problem-Solving. Wiley. p. 89. ISBN 978-0-470-22836-4. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
5. Chaney, L.H.; Martin, J.S. (2007). The Essential Guide to Business Etiquette. Praeger. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-275-99714-4. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
6. Mokiyenko, Valeri; Nikitina, Tatjana (1998). "митинг". Толковый словарь языка Совдепии [Explanatory dictionary of the language of the Sovdepia] (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Фолио-Пресс. ISBN 5-7627-0103-4. Retrieved 2018-09-21. Летучий митинг[:] Экстренно собранный непродолжительный митинг.

Further reading

• Johansen, Robert; Vallee, Jacques; Spangler, Kathleen. "Electronic Meetings: Technical Alternatives". ACM Digital Library. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
• Olson, Gary M.; Olson, Judith S.; Carter, Mark R. (1992). "Small group design meetings: an analysis of collaboration". Human-Computer Interaction. 7 (4): 347–374. doi:10.1207/s15327051hci0704_1. ISSN 0737-0024. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
• Effective Meetings at Work. Taylor & Francis. 2007. ISBN 978-1-136-40844-1. Retrieved October 1, 2018. 112 pages.