A while back, a colleague described to me a business practice in which "the meeting is a formality." What he meant is that every stakeholder has already had a chance to weigh in, every conflict among priorities has been resolved, every concern addressed, reviewed, and confirmed--before the review meeting. The meeting itself is the handshake at the end of the meeting.
This idea has stuck with me for years and served me really well. To be truthful, I hardly ever do actually get to the point where agreement has been entirely reached behind the scenes before the meeting, but I do manage to avoid a lot of pitfalls by understanding everyone's perspectives ahead of time. I give a lot of courtesy pre-reviews, ask a lot of questions, and so on. When I can't get time with a key stakeholder, I talk with people famililar with their thinking to try to anticipate their concerns, avoid their hot-buttons, and speak to their agendas.
Important conversations can easily be derailed by issues that could have been avoided. Doing legwork in the background accomplishes two things: Avoiding mistakes first of all, but more importantly focusing the conversation on the stuff that really needs to be discussed.
When things are really working right, the client doesn't just feel like you're on the same page--you are, actually, on the same page.
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