• Make sure that each committee/sub committee/working group has a real purpose for existence.
• Make sure that everyone on the team knows the purpose and agrees with it.
• Have only the right people on the team: interested, capable, and willing to work.
• Remove team members who are not right for the task or who do not participate.
• Don’t hold meetings without a clear reason. Call a full team meeting only when it is the best way to accomplish the task.
• Give advance notice of meetings, complete with a distributed agenda and reading materials.
• Encourage everyone to participate during meetings. Utilise seating arrangements that encourage equality of participation. Use name cards if attendees do not know one another. Discourage members who monopolise the discussion.
• Set norms for behaviour at the first team meeting and stick to them.
• Start and end meetings on time. If work isn’t done when time is up, negotiate a time for further discussion.
• Have an agenda for each meeting. Schedule important items first on the agenda.
• Allocate time for discussion according to the importance of each issue.
• Send members a summary of each major meeting focusing on the decisions made and the actions required. Reminding members of outstanding actions before the next meeting will help your members fulfill their obligations.
• Be very specific about tasks and deadlines.
• Don’t discuss, re-discuss and continue to discuss items. Make leadership decisions. Retain – Making it a team effort.

Forming volunteer management sub committees

• Don’t have more than eight people on a team without breaking it into sub-groups with leadership for each.
• Conclude each team meeting with a summary of what is to be done, by whom and by when.
• Double-check for agreement on important issues. Seek opposing points of view.
• Don’t allow unrelated discussions during meetings.
• Make sure everyone gets credit for the accomplishments of the team.
• Allow some social time following each meeting or function.