181–190 of 235 posts
I don't remember the last time i had a meeting that was productive. Last time i worked in the office, the hallway discussions where the productive ones and now working remote most of the time is just being able to work with good people that understand text and work by messages that works good. Even video meetings with good people tends to be waste of time.
Also why is there a hard end time rather than a maximum time? What is even going on? How are you getting work done?
Maybe I’m just a silly lab engineer who doesn’t know how big companies work (i did work at a startup for a time but that’s even more anti meeting than a lab) but I feel like maybe if you have so many back to back meetings that you need to plan around them you should have fewer meetings? Also why is there a hard end time rather than a maximum time? What is even going on? How are you getting work done?
>also why is there a hard end time rather than a maximum time?
Depends on company, culture, and individuals. If you get through the purpose of the meeting, the meeting organizer may well say "Let's give everyone 20 minutes (or whatever) back." I do think that it's a worthwhile goal to default to In any case, agendas and thinking about how the meeting time should actually be spent is worthwhile.
Maybe I’m just a silly lab engineer who doesn’t know how big companies work (i did work at a startup for a time but that’s even more anti meeting than a lab) but I feel like maybe if you have so many back to back meetings that you need to plan around them you should have fewer meetings? Also why is there a hard end time rather than a maximum time? What is even going on? How are you getting work done?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd rather have a 5-minute break built-in for everyone by starting 5-past and actually enforce meeting end-times. Behaviors would change if people knew they had 25 or 55 minutes for a meeting and that folks would just leave when the time is up.
Seen from within the meeting, it does not really matter if you start 5 minutes late or end 5 minutes early. I think the point is to reduce meeting time from 60 minutes to 55 or even 50 and be firm about it. People need to expect to start and end on time; giving them a natural break between helps make this happen even for people whose job requires them to be in back-to-back meetings. Personally, I think starting on th…
It matters because there sometimes are meeting where it is very important to know how much time you have to prepare appropriately. As long as the expectations are set beforehand, it matters less.
I roughly agree with the rest of your post. "Just be punctual" is a cop out that ignores the fact that I need to have enough breaks between meetings before I can even think about being punctual. Make space for breaks and enforce the time allocated is imo the solution, it matters less where exactly the 5-minute break fits (but I tend to agree that people would more likely end on the full hour, so that would mean we need to start 5 past).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That almost sounds insulting. Like management is the only party with vision, drive and a goal and everybody else is just there to help. When often management just manages and true innovation really comes from people of all positions.
On the contrary, it is a helpful term. Before the term, it was common to ask "are you a manager", and then you were defined oppositionally, as not-a-manager. Whereas IC having its own identity means it has many positive connotations. "I'd much rather be an IC, so I can get things done" etc. You can still be very senior without having direct reports or having to do line management, often seen as a necessary evil.
Shifting everything from :00 to :05 is theatre at best, and a slippery slope more often.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t the point of TFA that meetings _unavoidably_ run 5 minutes late, and so starting at 0:05 will avoid being impacted by the previous meeting? I see two flaws: 1) This only works as long as nobody else does it. If the meeting prior to yours follows the same strategy then you’re in the same position as today 2) it starts 5 minutes later but has no plan for ending 5 minutes earlier, which means the next meeting will…
Meetings running over is avoidable. People just need to stop enabling bad behavior. I work with a PM who is notorious for meetings running long. People just start hanging up while she’s talking if they have another meeting to go to. When she start hearing a bunch of beeps of people leaving, she starts to get the message that she needs to continue on the next meeting and stop. People are tired of it and don’t entertai…
I want Teams to show me the dollar cost of meetings. Enter an approximation of the average salary for people involved in the meeting, multiplied by the number of people in the meeting, and broadcast the cost ticking up every second to every person in the meeting. I don’t think anything else will be ans effective at reducing the number of meetings, reducing the length of meetings and reducing the number of people who…
A blanket force to reduce meetings isn’t quite the right incentive; we need incentives to have the right amount of meetings and to make them more effective. The right amount of meetings is probably always going to be more than ICs want, and less than managers want. But if you have any reliable ways to make that happen, to keep meetings effective, that’s gold. Charge money for that knowledge and consult, or become a CEO, either way you’ll get rich!