21–30 of 46 posts
There was an old book on the topic. Roberts Rules of Order
i don't think it's old as in not referenced anymore - i seem to recall the US Senate uses it as their rule book? or Heinlein sent me wrong...
Meetings are like teamwork trips. They are the illusion of progress.
There are situations where they are necessary but nothing beat ongoing discussions around actual work.
There was an old book on the topic. Roberts Rules of Order
-8) Eliminate boat anchors wasting time of previous with non-value-add bullshit.
here are my takes on meetings in general, some correlated to the article's sentiments:
1. avoid meetings when possible, avoid them like the plague. as a meeting organizer, you need to be very clear about your objective/goal for the meeting, so don't be too liberal with other people's time, but this also means when being asked to attend a meeting, cancelling or rejecting the ones you deem to be useless. learn to just say "no". as an engineer i feel this sometimes lowers your favorability in the eyes of managers or peers, but this sets the right culture and tone, if you're in a company where you attend a lot of useless meetings, i feel for you.
2. avoid meetings when possible
3. avoid meetings when possible
4. for decision making meetings, limit the number, preferably 5. always list actions triggered from the meeting and follow up on them adamantly with owners assigned before leaving the room. the meetings where there's a lot of talk, but then everyone leaves without clear ownership are a waste of time.
6. for developers, it's important to recognize that they maybe in "the zone", so if i must have a meeting with developers, i try to organize this during the beginning or end of the day, meetings during the middle of day tend to break them out of the zone, then they have to context switch back to that deep problem that they were thinking about which would be a huge productivity fail on everyone's part.
7. keep things concise, we're not here to small talk about families or the warriors, do that at the water cooler. some people use this as an ice breaker to relax the mood, but that is just potentially a cover up for some big shit storm about to happen.
8. for the meetings where you're trying to pass down information, keep it concise again, ok to reiterate key messaging, believe the shit that you're saying, have conviction.
9. keep track of time, i hate all the assholes that overrun meeting times, i tend to attend these meetings less and less, if they can't prove that they can hold effective meetings then you lose my time.
10. know thy audience, what messaging do you want to give, what messaging do you hope they digest, and tailor it, don't talk about stuff that 80% of the people don't care about, you're wasting people's time.
11. the good ol' status meeting, everyone and their mother attends to get a feel for what others are working on, but has absolutely no pertinence to what i need to get done or have done. really keep things high level, this is not your chance to voice your opinion, or give people the illusion that you're busy. just talk about the high level points, if you have stuff to resolve, don't do it in the meeting, do it offline, ahead of the meeting.
12. prepare well for meetings, i used to think that i could just waltz in and improvise, no, you need to prepare well, if you have a 1h meeting with 5 people, that's 6h of company time being spent, almost a full person day spent. you better be ready and you better get to the point.
13. be on time, every minute wasted is amplified by the number of people waiting. i usually issue punishment for the ones that come in late, sometimes just the latest, sometimes everyone who's late, buy coffee, do pushups, whatever it is.
14. i have a no phone and laptop policy in my meetings, sure you could be one of those new fangled flower power children that like to take notes on ipad/surface, or evernote on your laptop, but don't do that. you should, however, bring in a paper notebook. i know you have photographic memory, but bring that notebook, means you're well prepared and expecting something out of the meeting. i had a friend that brought his laptop to play nba live to his harvard law school class. i also had this senior director during a 3 on 1 interview doodle penises on his laptop while the candidate was talking. there's potential for a lot of mistrust in these circumstances. i think for the meeting owner to project onto a screen is obviously fine, but there's nothing concealed. assholes that answer phone calls or email during my meetings, unless you're sre/devops, should be banned from meetings. the goal should be to get out of the meeting as quickly as possible, everyone focused, if you cannot focus then things will drag on.
15. avoid meetings if possible...
I avoid meetings like the plague. Even when I was running a company with 80 people I would ask if I was necessary or my input was necessary. If not I wouldn't accept. Meetings are like teamwork trips. They are the illusion of progress. There are situations where they are necessary but nothing beat ongoing discussions around actual work.
Poorly-run meetings give the illusion of progress, but I posit that well-run meetings are actually a good thing. They shouldn't be gab-fests; they should be intentional, with reasons for existing and with some sort of output (e.g. 'the design for the new subsystem' or 'the team will understand and be prepared to address the causes for our failure to ship').
There was an old book on the topic. Roberts Rules of Order
It'd be hilarious if one of my co-workers tried to break out the ole Roberts Rules at a typical meeting.... Meetings are bad enough.
And the rules themselves anticipate that not every meeting needs to use every rule. The basic ideas are good ones (e.g. record minutes of the meeting or the chairman should run the meeting but not take sides).