Meeting Skills

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2001), "Meeting Skills", Library Review, Vol. 50 No. 3, pp. 146-159. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.2001.50.3.146.1

Multimedia can often make training and professional development a highly attractive experience, and can often be used with groups as well as by individuals, at any time and at any stage, making the investment cost‐effective. Maxim Training is one of many companies in a competitive field specialising in online/LAN/intranet and CD‐ROM interactive training materials, and Meeting Skills is a recent addition to their product range. Meetings are often a necessary evil, often poorly managed and acrimonious, and expensive pieces of staged misunderstanding. They are also a key decision‐making tool, an opportunity to trade information, develop listening skills, reach consensus, and get things done. This CD‐ROM is clear and lively: it goes through preparation and opening, trading information and problem solving, reaching agreement and deciding on action. Its target audience is management education and CPD, corporate/business environment, junior/middle managers, and it clearly has Investors in People, and the Small Firms Development Initative/MCI business and management‐level NVQs in mind.

Based around a digitised video‐sequence of a meeting, it consists of commentary, acting out, and analysis of character and performance. It lasts an hour‐and‐a‐half, with opportunities for play‐back and printing out check‐lists. The structure is clear, challenging users to analyse for themselves and make choices, and providing feedback. The commentary is plain‐speaking and clear, even if at times a bit pedagogic. Synchronisation of voices, image, and effects is good, although the actors do seem at times to be acting in a bath. The four characters at the meeting are easy to identify (with) and their dilemmas and misunderstandings wryly realistic. The content itself is modern, practical, and sensible – what are meetings for, how can listening skills be developed and used, why do meetings fail, who is responsible for success? good questions well supported by image and sound.

Technically, the minimum platform for running the CD‐ROM is SX/25 with 4MbRAM and a mouse, SVGA graphics card 64064806256 colours, double‐speed CD‐ROM drive, 16‐bit sound card, and Windows 95/98 or NT. The CD‐ROM can be run as is or installed to a PC hard‐drive, and then uninstalled. The course runs faster if installed on hard‐disk but you need 12 Mbytes of hard disk space. Installation is reliable and quick, and icons clear and fast‐acting. The price of the single‐user version is £820 (with electronic minder), and there is a five‐user (or five‐location) version for £2,199. The reviewer examined a review copy with a five‐visit allowance. For products like this, the questions are “Is it worth it?”, “What else is available?” and “Will it date?” For general training and development, where trainers can put the generic ideas here into context, this is a well‐constructed and value‐for‐money product.