A very common in developing a team meeting case someone expresses an opinion, another responds to that comment, giving way another person subtly to another topic.
At this time, everyone starts to intervene in this new point with a weight such that the meeting eventually deviate completely from the planned program.
Even if everything is related to the agenda, a team loses momentum when people start to generate different conversations without reaching a conclusion.
However, it is not difficult to stay focused with this simple rule. When a new problem or issue appears, take responsibility for ensuring that the current issue is resolved before the team moves to try a new topic.
Often this means listening to everyone at the meeting, if only to see whether they agree with what is being proposed.
In fact, in many meetings arise new issues that can not be addressed by insufficient data and not pass for mere speculation, in these cases, it is best to summon those attending the next meeting to treat it with data on the table and avoiding unnecessary speculation discuss.
For example, if you say: “Given our discussion, I think we should not set our plan until we see the financial data for the first quarter,” we keep asking: “Does anyone have any concerns about doing that?”