Joshua Herzig-Marx » meetings

9 tips for running more productive meetings | 43 Folders

herzigma — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 18:48:07 +0000

I post a lot about meetings – here are some more suggestions from 43Folders:

Tips for running meetings – and in the comments I add to keep them short: 9 tips for running more productive meetings | 43 Folders

More meetings on Lifehack.org

herzigma — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 19:07:12 +0000

I responded to another article about meetings on Lifehack.org: Meetings, @&!!$*@ Meetings!.

They provided three acceptable reasons to hold a meeting:

You wish to gather ideas and thoughts from those present.

People have concerns about some topic and you are ready to answer them in person and immediately.

A group of people wish to come together to celebrate a success or support one another in adversity.

I think there’s one more reason for holding a meeting – meetings can be a very efficient method, from both the presenter/distributor’s and the consumer’s perspective, of delivering information that does not need to be saved or archived. I’m not a fan of methodologies, but the Scrum requires daily meetings where participants report on their progress. Some interesting points:

* Only people who are actively completing tasks get to speak, everyone else just listens
* Even if you are allowed to speak, you can only say three things: what you worked on since the last meeting, what you will be working on until the next meeting, and if there are any obstacles in completing your tasks.
* No actual work, discussion or problem solving is allowed.

These meetings are short (15 people = less than 10 minutes) and save everyone time. I don’t need to spend time reading status reports, no one needs to spend time writing daily updates…and if the meeting is held at the same time and place every day, they’re minimally disruptive.

Useful meetings?

herzigma — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 02:50:35 +0000

Web 2.0 darling 37signals posted their guide to useful meetings–begin with a simple problem, meet on site, end with a solution and responsible parties, celebrate, shut up, and do something–but I think their list was incomplete. I once worked at a company whose scrum methodology demanded daily status meetings. Surprisingly, they were the only meetings no-one hated:

They happened at the same time and the same place, every day
They lasted less than 15 minutes
You could only say three things: what you worked on since the last meeting, what you would be working on until the next, and if there was anything impeding your progress
Half of the room (the half that weren’t actively developing) weren’t even allowed to talk

I think the 37signals folks and their philosophy of “do less with less” would have liked the meetings. If any problems were raised, they were handled outside of the room. Why take up everyone else’s time dealing with someone else’s issues? In fact, without the conversations and the problem solving, a meeting turns into a very effective way to communicate large amounts of information to a lot of people very quickly.