Earlier quoted context omitted.
deal with inefficient meeting culture Use an auto-transcription service. If presence is required, try to get a real time system going and flag keywords. That way you can alternate task your way to the important bits without dedicated mental bandwidth. The nice thing about this is you just need the system audio feed, muted, as the input which by definition works with all conferencing platforms.
can you provide some specific recommendations here?
Ask HN: How do you run better meetings?
61–70 of 74 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you run better meetings?
#62Run less or no meetings. If you have to run meetings, consider the option to temporarily institute an approval process by senior management whereby the thesis for any meeting (proposed agenda, attendees, etc.) is first proposed in private. Then senior management has the opportunity to ask questions and give feedback. This alone will force those convening to think twice. If necessary, quantify the cost of the meeting…
"late afternoon, first thing in the morning pre-coffee, right after lunch"
The problem is that unless everyone works exactly the same hours, that's almost all the times - you basically have to have all your meetings at 10 or 2.
Re: Ask HN: How do you run better meetings?
#63Run less or no meetings. If you have to run meetings, consider the option to temporarily institute an approval process by senior management whereby the thesis for any meeting (proposed agenda, attendees, etc.) is first proposed in private. Then senior management has the opportunity to ask questions and give feedback. This alone will force those convening to think twice. If necessary, quantify the cost of the meeting…
This is nuts. Having management approve meetings? How about "learn to communicate: decline unnecessary meetings and figure out how to reconcile disagreements".
This is how you end up with meetings to decide if a meeting is needed.
Re: Ask HN: How do you run better meetings?
#64I spend about 5-10 minutes putting together an agenda that includes references to background context, purpose, and expected outcome. If the background material is essential I include a prep time estimate. I decline meetings that are unclear what they are and say why. If the agenda is sparse or I don’t understand why it’s taking an hour, I suggest 30 or 15 minutes, etc I connect in 2-3 minutes early for some zoom chit…
Mind sharing an example of what your meeting agenda looks like?
I don’t really use a template and I tend to send this out with the initial invite to give as much lead time as possible and then a link to a cloud doc that might change.
Here’s a recent one I sent with something like: “I’d like to meet to discuss what you need as a data steward from a metadata catalog. At the end of our time we should have a list of functions you think are important in our architecture guard rail.
To prepare for our time, please spend five minutes reading the linked docs in the agenda
Topics to cover, please free to add anything you think is relevant: - Different Personas, including stewards [link to an intranet page] - prepend - How users use your data today, desired new uses -invited person1 - Any systems or APIs you currently have we could use to find metadata - invited person2 “
I cant format here but I’ll put people’s names in bold to help them understand the expectation.
If somebody emails me back an agenda item, I’ll add it to the agenda and update the calendar invite.
Re: Ask HN: How do you run better meetings?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is nuts. Having management approve meetings? How about "learn to communicate: decline unnecessary meetings and figure out how to reconcile disagreements".
Isn't it the same thing? The approvals are to verify that the meeting is necessary. I'd assume that other communication is done semi-formally, e.g. a slack group or call. Updates are asynchronous, someone does an update and the the whole group knows. Anything where you have to block out 2 hours of everyone's time should be approved.
They are not the same thing. I'm not disagreeing with the specific example you supplied, either.
As much as I dislike pointless meetings, this approach would not work in my workplace. Senior management would view this as a request to be babysat. Employees are all expected to host and attend meetings, and everyone is responsible for the value of this time|work.
Meetings come in all shapes and sizes.
Re: Ask HN: How do you run better meetings?
#66I think meetings between management and meetings between the development teams should be strictly separated. The worst meetings are when both types of people are in the same meeting.
For development teams, I run the meetings for the benefit of the team.
Here are the meetings I usually run with a team - Daily Standup, try to keep it below 15 minutes and on track, what are you doing, anything keeping you from doing your job? need any help? - Weekly Knowledge exchange: Let the team share what they did this week and what they learned? Can be offtopic, but not untechnical. E.g. I learned about this algorithm unrelated to work. This is for the team to grow their skills and share some tidbits the others may benefit from. - Bi-weekly Bug review: We look through the list of bugs and see what the underlying cause was for each bug. Ways to fix it are discussed
That's all I run. I hate other meetings with a passion. I've sat in meetings with 30 people that were in a foreign language, what a waste of time.
Re: Ask HN: How do you run better meetings?
#671. Prepare agenda - write in points what topics are going to be at the meeting.
2. Set time frame - meeting longer than hour is counterproductive.
3. Invite proper people - include those who are actually needed (don't invite anyone "just in case").
4. Moderate!!! - have someone who will moderate meeting, will be in charge of presenting queued topics (asking questions and asking for answers) and will cut extending off-topics.
5. Write summary - sum up everything was said during meeting and send to everyone who was participating.
Re: Ask HN: How do you run better meetings?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mind sharing an example of what your meeting agenda looks like?
I don’t really use a template and I tend to send this out with the initial invite to give as much lead time as possible and then a link to a cloud doc that might change. Here’s a recent one I sent with something like: “I’d like to meet to discuss what you need as a data steward from a metadata catalog. At the end of our time we should have a list of functions you think are important in our architecture guard rail. To…
I like how simple your agenda items look. It kind of reads like an email that needs to be discussed.
Re: Ask HN: How do you run better meetings?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like the general idea of having less meetings. I try to cut time down for meetings I am responsible for. However, there are ~10 hours of meetings each week that I need to join either because: 1. There is an expectation by management that I should be there in case they have a question (often they do not). 2. I join to make sure I do not miss the critical pieces of information that I need. That is often five minutes…
> However, there are ~10 hours of meetings each week that I need to join either because: 1. There is an expectation by management that I should be there in case they have a question (often they do not). We dealt with this in the zoom era by having some people present but not paying attention. They would join the meeting but then turn the sound off and do their own thing. If we needed their input on something, then we…
I quite like this and I feel like you could go one better and have optional people be "on call" during the meeting i.e. they should be available to ring in if needed.
Re: Ask HN: How do you run better meetings?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t really use a template and I tend to send this out with the initial invite to give as much lead time as possible and then a link to a cloud doc that might change. Here’s a recent one I sent with something like: “I’d like to meet to discuss what you need as a data steward from a metadata catalog. At the end of our time we should have a list of functions you think are important in our architecture guard rail. To…
I like how simple your agenda items look. It kind of reads like an email that needs to be discussed.
I’m not a professional meetinger, so I assume that people want to read as little as possible. And my goal is something specific and would rather never meet.
I think it is just an email tied to a calendar item that floats around in calendars, teams, whatever.