Teaching Meeting Skills In The Classroom

The goal of a Construction Management curriculum is to prepare men and women to be marketable and productive to future employers. In addition to formalized core and cognate courses, there is a need to equip graduates with appropriate soft skills including communications. In particular, conducting effective meetings plays a significant role in construction management. Learning how to conduct effective meetings requires more than book reading and knowing the “rules”; practice and example are paramount. College professors hold a unique position in being able to teach “meeting skills” to their students through good example in the classroom. After all, a classroom session is really an instructional meeting, one of the five types of meetings addressed in this paper. The instructor’s continued example of holding effective classroom meetings should help the student learn the principles of conducting effective meetings. Introduction Management functions are often identified using five basic responsibilities: planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. Most construction management degree programs in the United States address these responsibilities or management functions by requiring courses in planning, scheduling, estimating, codes, contracts, and other basic construction sciences to prepare graduates for contributory roles in the industry. However, studies have shown that there are skills needed by the industry not covered by these basic courses. Communications skills are among these. Communications in construction management takes on various forms. One form of communications, meetings, plays a key role in getting work done. For a construction projec~ meetings begin early on in the conceptualization, feasibility, and design phases of a project. They continue through construction for progress reporting, coordination and resolution of special issues. Even after construction is over, meetings continue for such things as project close out and turn over, dispute resolution, and “Lessons Learned” meetings. Meetings are all too often looked upon by attendees and outside observers as a waste of time, and many of them are. We must teach people how to conduct effective meetings. This paper addresses several types of meetings held in the industry, the reasons for poor meetings, and methods for making meetings more ~~x~~ 1996 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings @lylIl: P ge 123.1 productive. Principals discussed throughout the paper can be “taught” to students by the example his/her professor exhibits in the classroom.