Meeting Management Roles

The APREF Meeting Framework

Meetings operate most effectively when people are assigned to specific meeting management tasks.

As part of the APERF Meeting Management Framework, we define seven key roles for managing and organizing a meeting.

These roles are; Moderator, Participant, Organizer, Presenter, Time-Keeper, Minutes-Taker, and Parking-Lot Taker.

Moderator (or “Facilitator”):

Responsible for controlling the flow of the meeting and ensuring the agenda is followed.
Helps to resolve any issues or challenges that arise during the meeting process.
Acts as a “neutral participant”, but may need to take a stronger role in complex or difficult issues.

Participant (or “Attendee”):

Comes prepared to participate with their expertise and advice.
Willing to provide solutions and raise valid concerns.

Organizer

Responsible for organizing the meeting and preparing the meeting logistics, including the agenda.
The organizer is often also the moderator, but for large meetings, they may be different people.

Presenter

Anyone that is presenting information as part of an agenda item.
Must be prepared to present within their allocated time-slot.

Time Keeper

Keeps track of the time allocated to each agenda item and presenter.
Works with the moderator to ensure the meeting stays “on-time”.
The moderator will often play the role of time-keeper for smaller meetings.

Minutes-Taker (or “Recorder”)

Responsible for recording key decisions and action items from the meeting.
Whenever possible, the moderator should not also be the minutes-taker.

Parking-Lot Taker

Ensures items designated to the “parking lot” are captured on a separate “parking lot list”.
For small meetings, will often be combined with the minutes-taker role.

For large meetings, it is best to have different people playing the different roles.

But for smaller meetings, a single person may often play multiple roles.