Q: What to do when people start going off course by accident / habit?
A: It is good practice in larger meetings (say, more than 10 attendees) to nominate a person to keep watch for people going off-topic – in smaller meetings this would be part of the chair’s role.
Usually you can get people back on topic by gently reminding the meeting of the point of the discussion (either the agenda item or the objective of the meeting). If this divergence keeps recurring, you may need to discuss this behaviour with the offending person outside the meeting.
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