PACER - SPACER

I was just reading an electronic newsletter sent by the Business Development Back of Canada (BDC) and one of the items was meeting with success.  That jogged my memory about meeting best practices I learned while working on a project for a large American corporation. 

Now let me explain the MLA (multiple letter acronyms) post title.  All of my client's meetings started with a SPACER which stands for Safety, Purpose, Agenda, Code of conduct, Expectations, and Roles.  I will not go into the details of each item; you can easily deduce them from the article.  It must be noted that the mnemonic starts with Safety, the most important aspect in manufacturing organizations; using PACERS instead just would not have been as powerful.  Non manufacturing organizations might want to use PACER instead.

I believe the best advice lies in practice #3.  I’d close and lock the door and refuse entry to anyone that is late.  I also like the contrarian approach on not inviting everyone to a meeting.  We all know people that never contribute anything and just sit there; let’s not waste their precious time.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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