Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting

Good meetings don't just happen. Set, and stick to, an agenda with times. Set a second meeting that's more open-ended with optional attendance. People need the social aspect, and it will pop out at the seams of you don't make space for it.

But the thing is, an "everything meeting" wastes everyone's time. Maybe you could sell it that way - "The way we're doing this is wasting everyone's time; lets get better at not doing that."

Ideally, this shouldn't be you, but you (plural) addressing this. You might be able to initiate the idea of keeping meetings on track, but you need buy-in from others, that they also start helping keep meetings on track.

Common issue and not nennecessarily remote related but it might have become worse the past couple years because of it. Whether its your meeting or not, you must keep things on track. It's your responsibility more than anyone if it is your meeting but as a team, you have to do it together. I interject and even interrupt if I have to.

Sometimes it can be abrupt and seemingly a hard response but I try to say things like "Hey all, this is a good conversation but let's get back to XYZ topic for this meeting." Other times it can be helpful to state a reason why its off topic before you draw the group back. Contextual.

It's also a great team feedback/retro discussion to have with examples and how you can stay on better track in the future. This includes training how to run meetings and like wise how the team can support staying on track.

This hasn't been my experience at companies that started remote-first, or in companies that had a lot of cross-geo/TZ meetings, because there's both a culture and policy of having agendas and DRIs (Designated Responsible Individuals) who keep the meeting on task.

But it was a problem at a company that were once primarily colocated and then converted to remote work during the pandemic, where the "everything" tendency was a side-effect of losing other modes of communication. People who once had passing, unstructured, "everything" conversations in hallways/kitchens/etc. try to cram those opportunities into every meeting they have with others.

Identifying this helps redirect those conversations into other venues. Even just saying "hey, this is a really good thing to talk about, can we either bring it back up after this meeting's over or chat about it when we've got some free time" can be enough.

The deeper issue is still that people who used to connect one way have lost that connection and haven't found a way that feels equally natural to regain it. Some people thrive on having unstructured, not-strictly-bounded, short conversations, and remote work tools haven't done a great job of enabling them because they're all mutually opt-in (for really, really good reasons).

It would take some cultural adjustment, but even just a Slack-or-equivalent channel where people can drop in and out that has an explicit rule of, "If I'm in this channel, you can talk to me whenever about whatever, it's OK" can help people who want or need this kind of connection. (Discord nails this with voice channels, and I don't know if Slack has anything like it — if it does, no place I've worked uses it.) Everyone else can avoid it or limit their exposure, just like they would in an office by avoiding common spaces, wearing headphones, or just saying "nah sorry I don't have time to chat".

John Cleese Meetings, Bloody Meetings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JpC67gw7B8&ab_channel=MetaM...