5 Different Types of Formal Meetings

Formal meetings have a specific structure and Meeting Agenda. Most business meetings that a company arranges are formal. A formal meeting is an arranged meeting scheduled between two or more people. The purpose of a formal meeting is to achieve a common goal through conversation.

For conducting a formal meeting, a company should need to provide a specific date, time, place, and Meeting Agenda between the participants.

The first step towards planning a formal meeting is defining its type. Each formal meeting type is unique from the others. Here I am going to describe the five types of formal meetings that companies conduct.

• Information-Sharing Meetings
• Decision-Making Meetings
• Problem Solving Meetings
• Innovative Meetings
• Team Building Meetings

Information-Sharing Meetings

When a company arranges an information-sharing formal meeting, its purpose is to inform the attendees about any changes, issues, and upcoming projects. The objective behind these meetings is to share the information among the attendees. This information can be about any changes in the company, new products launch, new rules & regulations, or any other important information.

Mostly, the presenters use audiovisual instruments, slides, charts, memo graphs, and other things to address the attendees during a formal information-sharing meeting.

Mostly during formal information-sharing meetings, the participants of the meeting are inactive. All attendees only came to attend an information-sharing meeting to gain the information.

Decision-Making Meetings

Decision-making formal meetings are those meetings in which a company needs to get information from the attendees. Mostly decision-making formal meetings are conducted after information-sharing meetings.

All the attendees called to gather at a place for making some decisions on the said projects, rules, issues, and any other thing. In these meetings, company heads note down the suggestions of the attendees for all possible solutions.

Sometimes during formal decision-making meetings, voting is conducted to pass a resolution. A company secretary is always needed to keep the record of any formal meetings for future use.

Problem Solving Meetings

Problem-solving meetings are the most important type of formal meetings. These meetings are conducted to solve any recognized issues or problems. In a problem-solving meeting, attendees gathered to discuss all possible solutions to any issue.

Each participant in this type of formal meeting is allowed to give a suggestion. All suggestions are noted down to take action. Sometimes there are follow-up meetings called after problem-solving meetings in case there are no results found during the meeting.

Innovative Meetings

Innovative meetings regularly for new ideas, possibilities, concepts, partnerships, and sharing thoughts. Meeting members use different strategies and procedures to sort out things.

They discuss any said assessments, proposals, and undertakings. During innovative meetings, participants share their thoughts, and in the light of shared thoughts, the company heads make decisions.

Team Building Meetings

A team-building meeting is a meeting of people where they are going to choose a team for an upcoming project. After a brief discussion about the said project, all members need to share their ideas.

A team-building meeting plays an important role in completing a project between the deadlines. During a team-building meeting, there are several exercises and questioners distributed among the attendees. After taking questions and exercises, the team management authorities choose the right persons for a project.

You will need to dress up properly before attending any type of formal meeting.