Motley says: "Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us"

James Waletzky — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:37:00 GMT

Summary

Motley: I read an interesting statement the other day: "Meetings: none of us is as dumb as all of us". The only good meeting is a canceled meeting.

Maven: Meetings can be useful, if they: have a goal, have an agenda, limit attendees, are scheduled respectfully, are clear on expectations (e.g. preparation), have notes and actionable outcomes, and have a facilitator.

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[Context: It's 6pm on Monday and Motley is in a bit of a foul mood after a rough day at the office]

Maven: Hey, Mot! It's after 6pm. What are you still doing here? Don't you usually have karate class on Monday nights?

Motley: Get lost. I had to skip class, if it's any of your business.

Maven: Ouch. Someone must have stubbed their toe. Why the foul mood?

Motley: Meetings. That's why. What a bunch of crap. I spent the entire day in a series of ten 1-hour meetings. The only time I can get any real work done is before 9am and after 6pm. Because I actually have deadlines, my class had to go. I even had the class on my Outlook calendar and someone scheduled over top of it.

Maven: Sorry to hear that. What kind of meetings? Were they all useful?

Motley: All kinds of random meetings - planning, 1:1 with the boss, meeting with the security people, overview of test tools, functional specification review, discussion of code review process, and other miscellaneous discussions. Useful? How about 2 useful meetings out of 10. Most were about as useful as haircut on a bald guy, and the spec review was about as useful as Microsoft Bob. I would say the 1:1 was useful, and the code review process meeting was fairly helpful. Other than that, I pretty much wasted my day. I could have read romance novels and felt more productive.

Maven: Why did you attend all those meetings?

Motley: Because I was invited! Duh. Why else do you attend meetings smart boy?

Maven: Just because you were invited doesn't mean you absolutely have to be there. I get invited to meetings all the time that I decline.

Motley: You? Decline? But you get your hands into everything!!! The ones you decline must be at the far end of the useless scale. So what is your strategy?

Maven: By default, say "no". That's the first rule. Someone has to provide some major justification for me to be there, especially if it's not obvious to me. I'll e-mail the person or better, talk to them, to find out whether my presence is necessary or whether I can just read the notes afterward.

Motley: Well, I could try that, but I am afraid I'll make enemies. What am I saying?!? Who cares. Ok, I like that rule.

Maven: Next, only attend meetings that have a specific goal. You need to be really clear on what the meeting intends to accomplish. If it is more informational, go if you're interested, don't go if you're not.

Motley: Pretty much all meetings I attend do not have a specific goal. They are general discussions.

Maven: Correct. Request that the organizer have one so everyone is clear. Only attend meetings that have an agenda. No agenda? "Go not," as Yoda would say. Meetings need to have a clear order of discussion. Specific timing in the agenda is also recommended to prevent people from getting off track. The agenda sets expectations for what will be discussed and allows you to prepare if necessary.

Motley: I actually agree with you, Maven, as shocking as that sounds. I'll be a bit more forceful on having an agenda. These are good tips so far. Any more?

Maven: I'm glad you asked! Ensure meetings have no more than 6 attendees. Large meetings have too many communication paths and too many distractions. I recommend you just leave any meeting with more than 6 unless it's informational. It is very likely that nothing will get decided. I'll bet your spec review earlier was useless due to a high number of people?

Motley: Yes! There were 16 in the meeting. They spent a bunch of time bickering about a minor issue. I just opened my laptop and checked e-mail for the rest of the meeting. Nice hypothesis there, Mave.

Maven: I cheated. I saw the big group in the conference room and just knew it would be a waste of time. Another tip is to set expectations that your calendar is up-to-date and people should not book over top of it. I am religious about keeping my calendar current. If people do not have the courtesy to check whether I am available first, I am allowed to automatically decline . If there is a problem with the Exchange server and they can't see my free/busy information, then they need to come talk to me. If they book over top, I assume I am not an important attendee relative to the others that were free, and I decline.

Motley: Hard core, dude. I like it. Even if I have a 4:30pm softball game, I am going to push back. I'll make sure I have my personal appointments on there too to get the complete picture. A bit more organized than I would like, but I think it could work.

Maven: Here are a few more small tips:

Indicate who is optional to the meeting and who is required. Outlook provides a To: line for required, and a CC: line for optional attendees. Use it.
If preparation is required, make sure expectations are set. If attendees need to prepare, inform them of that and ensure they get sufficient time.
Appoint a facilitator to help keep the meeting on track. Give the person the power to keep the discussion on topic and cut people off if necessary.
Send out meeting notes after a meeting. Clearly indicate who needs to do what by when. Post the notes to an internal SharePoint site or equivalent.
Schedule meetings for 30 minutes. Most people default to 1 hour. Scheduling a meeting to a shorter length of time forces people to get there on time and focus. Longer meetings just expand to fill up the time of the scheduled duration.
Schedule meetings in core office hours. Meetings should be held between 10am and 4pm when everyone is here. Meetings outside of core hours, such as those to accommodate differing time zones, need to be setup and agreed upon well in advance.
Ensure everyone is engaged. A sure sign the meeting is getting derailed is if people open their laptops and surf the web or check e-mail. It is distracting. Ask them to leave or ensure they remain engaged by keeping the conversation on track.
Book an appropriate sized conference room with required equipment. Know in advance if audio/visual equipment is needed for a presentation or something.
Ensure a clock is visible. There should be no question about the time in a meeting. The facilitator should keep a close eye on the clock. Better yet, get a digital clock that counts in dollars instead of minutes!

Motley: You know, pretty much every meeting I had today executed to the opposite of what you just told me. No wonder I got nothing done! I think I'll write a blog entry on my real-world experiences to help people run more effective meetings.

Maven: Cool. I can't wait to read the article. Here's to improved meeting productivity!

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Maven's Pointer: Use an activity to "spice up" a meeting. Perhaps a brief break or a creative activity during the meeting help keep people engaged. Role play exercises can be fun, as well as exercises to come up with a tag line for the meeting or project.

Maven's Resources:

Search your favorite neighborhood search engine for "running effective meetings" and you will come up with many resources. The ones mentioned above are based on experience at Microsoft. I am sure many of the articles will have the same messages. Here is a sampling of two good ones:

Running Effective Meetings, by Matt Cameron and Cheryl Azevedo Johnson, Santa Clara University, http://www.scu.edu/csl/eleader/upload/Running-Effective-Meetings-Presentation.ppt
How to run a meeting like Google, by Carmine Gallo, BusinessWeek, http://yahoo.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2006/sb20060927_259688.htm

Progressive Development : meetings

Motley says: "Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us"