A meeting is a selection of overpriced ding-dongs gathered together for the sole purpose of achieving nothing. Although that is generally not the plan.

There are three tiers of meeting types:

• The Shambles: Generally ad hoc with no specific agenda laid out. Possibly a problem has arisen and it is important to discuss what, why, how, when and who, is going to get their ass handed to them.
• The Moderate: This meeting will be preplanned with emails sent out requesting that you hit either the accept, decline, or the “I don’t know I’ll have to check my schedule” buttons. If you’re lucky there will be an agenda either sent to you prior to the meeting so that you can plan ahead or, more likely, given to you upon attendance.
• The Premium: A really, really important, high-end, luxury meeting. Preplanned with agendas, VDE screens, beverages and maybe sweeties or sandwiches. This level of meeting will have a Chairperson. Someone to maintain control of the process and stop it from descending into a farce of whining, backstabbing and hijacked agendas.

A well organised meeting will have a clear, concise agenda of principle items to be covered, with any other business listed at the end just in case the opportunity arises.

A really precise agenda may also have the amount of time to be spent on each item.

You can gauge the usefulness of a meeting by how long it spends off topic.