Some time ago I summarized my personal meeting etiquette here:
https://pilabor.com/blog/2021/04/tips-and-tricks-for-meeting...
It's not made for remote, but most rules should apply. Hope it helps.
Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
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Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#12John Cleese Meetings, Bloody Meetings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JpC67gw7B8&ab_channel=MetaM...
This is awesome, hadn't seen it before, thank you!
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#131. Every meeting should have an agenda in the invite. I know some folks go as far as ignoring meetings that don't have one.
2. One person should own and drive the meeting.
3. Intention of every meeting should be producing some kind of result: action items, decisions made, people responsible, dates & milestones, etc.
Based on the short description you provided it sounds like nobody owns/runs the meeting.
If that's your responsibility (or you choose to make it yours) then keeping people on track is your job. You shouldn't feel like an ass for doing your job, you should feel like adult.
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#14Yikes.
Agendas are good, and the person running the meeting should try to stick with the agenda.
Sometimes it's hard though, if senior people within the meeting start steering it off course and the person running the meeting is a lower level and doesn't feel they have the right to steer the conversation back.
I don't know how I'd fix it, other than just subtly always steering the conversation back. Or you could just jokingly say "we're off topic! Stick to X dammit!" Depends on the culture, probably wouldn't fly at a lot of places.
Imo, it's really up to the person running the meeting to keep it on track.
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#15This is why chairmen exist. Your group probably needs one.
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#16There's many great practical tips about how to make an effective meeting here, but take a step back:
Whose work is getting done in this meeting?
Most of the time, it is your manager's work that is getting done. Next, ask whether the meeting is prepared for, whether it is an informational or decision-making meeting, and who is required to attend it.
Are all of these things required face-to-face/synchronously? If not, think of ways to make them more async friendly saving everyone time. Sometimes you will need everyone in the same room to make decisions or inform them on decisions that have been made.
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#17As others have said, have an agenda.
Also, whoever is leading the meeting needs to have a second person there who's job is to help refocus the meeting so that the agenda is followed. It's too much for one person to lead a meeting and fend off every random comment made by the team.
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#18Agenda. Made ahead of time or in the first 5 min of the meeting. Once the agenda is covered end the meeting.
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#19As others have said, at the very least you need a clearly defined Chairperson, and a clearly defined Agenda. It's useful to also state required participants for each meeting (by billet, not by name), and especially the Information Exchange Requirements. What are the pieces of info that feed into decisions made at the meeting, and what are the expected output products? Who is responsible for each input? What format should they be (PowerPoint slide, text document, etc.)?
It also helps to have a standardized format for documenting and disseminating information about the structure of your meetings.
Here's an older format example of what we use in many US military Joint Task Force headquarters: https://studylib.net/doc/5573463/b2c2wg-7-minute-drills-and-...
Here's a further description of the concept: https://realkm.com/2021/10/11/organization-management-rhythm...
Re: Ask HN: On my remote team, every meeting turns into an “everything” meeting
#20But 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.
I mean, it seems like maybe they need more everything meetings. Because all of their meetings are becoming that.
I would say, start scheduling everything meetings, and then defer everything topics until the next scheduled everything meeting. Work from there.