今週のビジネス英会話のビニェットのテーマはMeeting Planning（会議の企画立案）でした。
What is an effective meeting?
I suppose that an effective meeting has some prerequisites: purpose, well structured agenda, good time management, and so on.
In my opinion, the most critical requirements of the meeting are in its "planning" stage.
Firstly, we should define the purpose of the meeting. If we don’t determin it, the meeting will be nowhere. Distribution of an agenda with back ground materials is also very important because this will help participants prepare for the meeting beforehand.
Secondly, setting a time limit is crucial. Members are busy. So, if the meeting time is short and predictable, the members will be more likely to attend the meeting.
Finally, visual aids are useful. Concise charts or graphs are of assistance for members to understand the issues.
We should bear in mind that effective meetings are achieved by ample preparations.