Although training meetings are a necessary part of the success of a business, they can be challenging for the facilitator of the meeting. Nevertheless, if you are charged with the responsibility for leading a training meeting, your goal is to ensure that the participants depart the meeting motivated to implement what they learned.

Here are some tips to follow that can make your training meetings more effective:

• First and foremost, make sure that you are adequately prepared. Without question, you should know the material that you are presenting completely. In fact, how much preparedness that you do will determine your success in transferring the knowledge to the attendees.
• Keep the agenda segments brief. Since training meetings, at times, can be technical in origin and not easily absorbed, don’t try and cram too much into the agenda, especially if the topics are very detailed.
• Create a participative environment. You want to make every attempt to keep things interesting by getting the attendees involved in the meeting by sharing ideas, asking questions, or even offering other views.
• As the facilitator, don’t conduct the meeting by giving a speech. The surest way to lose the attendees is to turn the meeting into a formal presentation without any interaction. For people to get the most benefit and retain what you are presenting, the meeting needs to be more participative.
• Also, make sure that you don’t just read from the script or manual, as people are capable of reading for themselves. Likewise, your role is to expand on the topics to maximize what takeaways the people will be able to implement in the business.
• Summarize each portion of the agenda. Try to recap what was presented at each segment and allow questions to be asked or share other points of view. By doing so, will provide more clarity of the subject matter, rather than waiting to the end of the meeting.
• Since some training meetings tend to be dry, try being resourceful and inject some humor to keep the participants alert and engaged about what they are learning. Also, sharing any stories by you or others related to the training topics is another way to keep the meeting light and moving along positively.
• Consider using as many visual aids as appropriate. Not only do visual aids help to make a better presentation, they also support what you are communicating by making it more meaningful.
• Finally, be respectful of the attendees. After all, the people participating in the meeting have a desire to learn, are adults, and members of your organization. For these reasons, don’t attempt to run the meeting like a school classroom.

On the whole, while facilitating a training meeting can present some challenges, the end result is that the participants will leave the meeting more knowledgeable enabling them to make additional contributions to the business.