Throughout this book, we've talked about planning and executing the best meetings possible. Now that the meeting is over, we cannot let all of our hard work go to waste.
At the end of any meeting, participants should be on the same page regarding the following three things:
The actions that need to take place outside of the meeting.
The individuals responsible for those actions.
The timeframe for accomplishing the agreed upon actions.
This means the work doesn't end when the meeting is over. In fact, some might argue that the real work has only just begun. The meeting leader must make sure this work happens, on time, by the individuals assigned to the task.
Before launching into after-meeting assignments, it's not unusual to discover that the meeting discussion is still taking place. In many office or organizational environments, this is referred to as the meeting after the meeting.