The minutes for the January 2014 meeting note that FOMC participants saw the coming year as an appropriate time to consider whether the statement could be improved in any way. I concur: The time is right to consider sharpening the FOMCs statement of its objectives in several ways.

Today is likely the last day you will hear from FOMC policymakers for a few days. FOMC participants generally refrain from speaking publicly about the macroeconomic outlook and near-term monetary policy the week before meetings—and our next meeting is a week from tomorrow.

Our deliberations are quite civil. I defy you to find any place in government that operates that efficiently ... I think perhaps it is the last deliberative body that is totally civil.  
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I don't ever feel restrained speaking as a Federal Reserve official. I don't have to clear my speeches ... I think that's unique.

From Q&A as reported by Market News International

Asked if she regretted not having a vote as the Fed faces its most challenging period in decades, Yellen said that all the Fed policy-makers are "noodling it out together ... it doesn't matter that much if you cast a vote or not."

From Q&A as reported by Reuters

Poole said FOMC meetings have changed since Ben Bernanke took the helm at the Fed. Unlike the former chief, Alan Greenspan, Bernanke only comes out with his views toward the end of the meeting. It is also possible to make comments during the presentations of other colleagues. 

"That offers more time for discussion when thoughts are fresh," Poole said.

From a Dow Jones summary of a FAZ article

Chairman Bernanke has encouraged open discussion, encouraged us to question and challenge each other's positions and encouraged open dialogue within the meeting. I think he's also encouraged us to express fully our views on policy before he proposes a given policy proposal. He has moved in the direction of greater unscripted exchange of views, and that's been good.

While the presidents begin the outlook go-around, the order of presentations is otherwise set through what I call the "wink" system. When a Committee member wants to make his presentation, he winks at the deputy secretary, who then puts the member on the list, in the order of the winks. 

I also learned that FOMC meetings are more about structured presentations than discussions and exchanges. This surprised me. Each member spoke for about five minutes, then gave way to the next speaker. Many read from a prepared text or spoke from a de tailed outline, diverging only occasionally to include a comment on what was said earlier in the meeting. To my surprise, what evolved was not a spontaneous discussion, but a series of formal, self-contained presentations. (11) 

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Note 11:  I am told that the presentations used to be more spontaneous and interactive. But this changed once the decision was taken to release the transcripts after five years. Committee members apparently want to make sure that their remarks, when read five years later, will be coherent and graceful. So most would write them down and read them. I quickly fell into the practice of doing the same.

At the Board, the staff forecast, presented in the Greenbook prior to each of the eight FOMC meetings each year, is fundamentally judgmental. It is developed by a team of sector specialists who consult, but are not bound by, a number of structural econometric equations describing their sectors, and further armed, in some cases, with reduced-form equations and atheoretical time series models. The team develops the forecast within the context of agreed-upon conditioning assumptions, including, for example, a path for short-term interest rates, fiscal policy, oil prices, and foreign economic policies. They begin with an income constraint and then participate in an interactive process of revisions to ensure that the aggregation of sector forecasts is consistent with the evolving forecast for the overall level of output.

I must say that before I attended FOMC meetings, I had a different view of what constitutes the nature of policy, because I used to read the directives and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what in the world they were talking about. But now, given the few FOMC meetings I’ve attended, I’m realizing what it is.

The current schedule of eight meetings per year evolved in 1981. Its foundation was the greater focus on the monetary aggregates; meetings around the beginning of each quarter allowed a growth rate for the up-coning quarter to be established, and mid-quarter meetings gave an opportunity to consider mid-course corrections. With less emphasis on the aggregates in conducting short-run policy, this schedule could be reconsidered.

To some extent, the desired number of meetings may depend on the Committee's decisions on the focus of policy and discretion for intermeeting adjustments. Reduced scope for adjustments between meetings might call for more frequent meetings to calibrate policy to incoming information, though greater telephone contact might work in the other direction. And concern that greater attention to the federal funds rate could make adjustments more difficult might argue for more frequent meetings to consider policy alternatives. Generally, more frequent meetings have the advantage of more timely opportunity to review new information, but they also involve the inconvenience of more preparation and travel.