Case studies on designing meetings for effective institutional interactions

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has been actively pursuing opportunities for external input into its programs and plans. This pursuit for external input is a result of DOE's commitment to a culture of openness and public involvement in decision making and policy direction. This input has included interactions between DOE and other institutions such as state and local governments and Indian Nations. One way these interactions occur is in the form of meetings to discuss issues or concerns the various participants have regarding DOE policies. Our involvement with this type of interaction has been as the meeting designer, coordinator, and facilitator for two external review groups - the State and Tribal Government Working Group (STGWG) and a group comprised of DOE transportation officials and local government officials from cities and counties around the country. We'll refer to this second group as the Local Government Network. We coordinate the design and facilitation of the Local Government Network with the Urban Energy and Transportation Corporation. When designing the structure of a meeting we rely on the formula: Audience + Purpose = Design. In order to design an effective meeting, it's important to know who your audience is and the purpose of the meeting objectives. Our paper will discuss what we've learned about effective meeting design from our involvement with the two external review groups mentioned above. We'll also discuss the results of meeting evaluations participants filled out following a meeting to help us determine if our meeting designs met their purposes