8605-412 Managing Meetings

Unit Overview

8605-412 Managing Meetings is one of the principles units within the ILM Level 4 module that improves the skills and abilities of middle managers to fulfill their leadership duties and responsibilities within the organisation. This unit makes effective contribution to the skills and knowledge of the leaders in effectively influencing and mobilising the members of the organisation within their area of operation to effectively conduct meetings that are aimed at achieving specific duties and responsibilities within the organisation.

Middle managers have a duty of effectively communicating information with junior managers, team leaders, supervisors and employees as well as making effective reports to the top management within the organisations. As such, they should ensure that they are able to effectively and conveniently conduct meetings that put to consideration the context of the communication being shared, the location and the hierarchy of individuals involved in the meeting.

The main purpose and aim of the unit is to develop an understanding and ability to effectively manage meeting by expressing effective management skills which is a critical duty and responsibility of middle managers within the organisation. The unit therefore contributes in improving the ability of practicing and potential middle managers in their areas of administration. The unit is taught in 15 hours of guided learning and is equivalent to 3 credit values in the overall assessment of the ILM Level 4 module making it one of the main units within the area f study.

Suitability of the Unit

Managing meetings is one of the most regular responsibilities of various stakeholders within the organisation. 8605-412 Managing Meetings is designed with the learning needs and interests of the middle managers. It helps to generate a specific level of performance in communication and an understanding of principles that are associated with management of meetings that is highly relevant to the middle managers and their required standards of practice.

The unit is however applicable to different other stakeholders who have duties that involve being able to effectively put people together and conduct meetigns. The top managers within the organisation must have the information and knowledge that is presented within the unit. As such, the unit is suitable to them in improving their skills in their position of leading the general organisation.

The unit can also be used to improve the contribution and ability of individuals within the lower levels of management. Junior managers and team leader can use the information within the unto to boost their ability and competency in effectively managing meetings as well as prepare them for future leadership positions as middle managers or top managers within the organisation hence creating efficiency in the succession plan in the leadership section of the organisation.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should be able to:

• Understand the different types of meetings within the organisation and context within which each type of meeting is applied to achieve intended goals.

• Show understanding of the purpose and objectives of a meeting which improve awareness towards the need of having meetings in the organisation.

• Identify resources that they could require in conducting and managing the meeting effectively in their areas of operation

• Understand procedures and policies that are used to involve people to the meeting including the individuals that are invited to the meeting

• Support the attendees in making effective and relevant contributions to the meeting before and during the actual meeting

• Evaluate personal performance in managing meetings through different platforms and identify areas of weakness and strength in the role

• Create a personal development plan aimed at addressing identified weakness and improve personal performance as chair in a meeting

• Monitor the progress of actions that are recommended by relevant attendees of the meeting

• Evaluate personal actions running from the meeting to deadlines that are set within the organisation

• Effectively evaluate and report the impacts of the recommendations and plans form a meeting against the organisational goals and objectives

Key Learning Areas

8605-412 Managing Meetings covers critical areas involving the principles of effectively managing meetings, handling the attendees to the meeting and ensuring that plans agreed upon within the meeting are implemented to their completion. Some of the main areas of learning covered within the unit include:

Principles of Managing Meetings

This area of learning is aimed at providing the learners with the basic principles that they should use when setting meetings. It includes information such as the different types of meetings and situation or contexts where each meeting is convenient, setting goals and objectives for the meeting, and the process of inviting attendees to the meeting.

Evaluation of Personal Performance

Middle managers must be able to continuously improve their performance in handling and chairing meetings. 8605-412 Managing Meetings focuses on proving them with the necessary information and skills that they need to implementing effectively managing their performance and continuously improving hence ensuring that they can make effective contributions to the organisation.

This area of learning provides the learners with the different strategies that they can use to effectively monitor their performance in chairing the meeting. They are able to understand approaches of collecting and analysing feedback form attendees as well as creating personal development plans to improve on weaknesses.

Monitoring Agreements Made in a Meeting

This area of learning ensures the learners are able to monitor and evaluate the process of acting on actions recommended within the meeting. This proves involves being able to set apart the resources that are required to act on the actions as well as assign duties effectively to oversee the actions to completion.

In this area of learning, the learners are further guided on effective time management skills that are required to oversee the actions to their completion within the set deadlines within the meeting. Lastly, the leaders must be able to report the progress to the relevant attendees to the meeting. This area covers the critical information that should be included in reports on progress of actions agreed at a meeting improving the overall communication among attendees within the meeting.

Evaluation

Upon completion of the unit, the learners are put through an evaluation to determine accomplishment of learning objectives. The learners are required to complete a 3000 words assessment that focuses on examining the understanding of theory and practice learned within the unit.