Timeless
thoughts on meetings and getting stuff done
How many times have you sat in a meeting and wondered why in the hell you were there? How many times have you showed up to a meeting and had no idea what it was about? The internet is full of ideas on what makes meetings bad, and why they’re unnecessary - but far fewer suggestions on when meetings are necessary, and how they can be effective.
Communication
For what it’s worth, my Meyers Briggs Type Indicator says that I (INTP) really hate inefficiency. While MBTI is horoscope-y on some things, it’s spot on with this evaluation. I hate wasting time (and other people’s time). According to the internet, meetings are a horrible waste of time. Yet - my calendar is filled with meetings - so there’s either a paradox to unravel, or the internet is lying to me. Perhaps both.
I have a model I sometimes share on communication. I’ve drawn it on whiteboards (and in digital whiteboards), but in print, it’s something like this.
Information Sharing, calendar requests - email
Questions and Discussion - chat (Slack, Teams, etc.)
Things that require people talking - meeting
I loathe discussions in email. I am an inbox-zero person, and it’s almost impossible when email contains ongoing discussions over what kind of tea to put in the break room. Applications like Slack make it so-freaking-easy to ask questions, discuss answers, and then find that history so you don’t ask the same question that someone else asked two weeks ago.
Again, I hate inefficiency.
Outcomes Over Agendas
There’s a school of thought that I’ve seen for at least 20 years that says, “All meetings must have agendas!" Some partially wise folks add that they won’t attend meetings without agendas. I think this is dumb rule.
To be fair, a meeting where nobody knows why they were invited or what it’s about is a pretty bleak use of time, so I guess I can see where the agendas-only crowd is coming from. But if that’s your game, let’s play.
Meeting Agenda
Introductions
Review TPS Report
Open Discussions and Updates
Close
When agendas are demanded, people will often set shitty agendas. This agenda does, however, give some guidance to attendees. If they don’t care about the TPS report, they may want to choose not to attend - but I argue that they won’t know if they care about the TPS report unless they attend.
You could argue that it’s semantic, but I prefer outcomes over agendas. Here’s my version for your calendar updates
TPS Review
Please read the TPS report in advance of this meeting
Outcome of this meeting is:
align on report format for TPS v-next
determine if we should enable auto-update for current TPS customers
Feel free to pre-discuss in Slack ahead of the meeting time
A few things to note:
If there is a doc to review, ask folks to review it in advance. I know Amazon famously has reading time built into the first part of doc reviews, but I find most people need more time to digest. I also don’t buy the “leaders don’t have time to read in advance” motive that’s often cited. Doesn’t matter if you graduated college last week, or if you’re the CEO of Everything, we all get the same 24 hours in a day. <longer rant redacted>. If you must follow the cult of Bezos, I suggest scheduling a separate 15 minute meeting for “reading time”, followed by an actual face-to-face (or virtual equivalent) of actual discussion.
I obviously focused on outcomes. If the outcome is for everyone to read the doc with glazed eyes and nod their heads, then I guess that could be your outcome. I find that being more specific helps. It’s worth pointing out that it’s often at this stage where I decide not to have the meeting. If the outcome isn’t clear to me - or if I think we can get to the outcome async, I’ll never send the meeting request in the first place.
Finally (and where applicable), encourage discussion ahead of time. Introverts like me appreciate the time to look at opposing thoughts ahead of time or consider alternate approaches. Discussions, as I mentioned above are well suited for apps like Slack. In fact, in a remote, hybrid, or non-colocated team, mastering async discussion is a super power.
Do We Need This Meeting?
Focusing on outcomes is a great way to evaluate whether a meeting is needed. Every Friday (sometimes first thing Monday morning), I look at my calendar for the coming week and ask two questions about every meeting.
Do I know the outcome from this meeting
Am I prepared for this meeting
If it’s a meeting I scheduled, and I haven’t included the outcome I’m looking for, I apologize and send that immediately. If it’s a meeting from someone and I don’t understand what we’re trying to do, I ask. The conversation may go something like this:
me: What's the outcome we're looking for with the TPS meeting on Wednesday
them: I just want to walk everyone through the doc
me: We can all read the doc on our own - would it be more efficient to get folks to add comments and edits? If people aren’t in the doc, we can ping them on Slack to ask for feedback.
them: Sounds like a better plan. I’ll cancel the meeting.
Or:
me: What's the outcome we're looking for with the TPS meeting on Wednesday
them: I want to align on whether we should decommission the fizzbuzz calculator
me: Great topic - can you please communicate that to the attendees ahead of time so they can prepare?
them: Of course
Or some other variation. First, figure out if a meeting is necessary, and if it is, do a bit of work to make it a more effective use of time for the attendees.
Everything in Moderation
A search on “meeting cost calculator” will show you that a lot of people have gone the math route and built calculators to estimate the “cost” of a meeting. What I also think is important, is to calculate the cost of what happens when not holding a meeting costs money elsewhere. I have typically run a weekly meeting of leads and product/program managers to go over risks and progress on major initiatives. In the small scheme of things, it’s an expensive meeting. But, because transparency and accountability is such a huge principle of that meeting, we often find cross-org dependencies, duplicated work, and shortcuts that end up saving many times the meeting cost over time.
That said, I absolutely recommend reviewing the value of recurring meetings on a regular basis.
Final Notes (and book Recos)
So. Much. More. that I could have included here. In Death by Meeting, Patrick Lencioni talks about the types of recurring meetings that a business should have. In Read This Before Our Next Meeting, Al Pittampalli has numerous ideas on improving meetings. Finally, I’m a huge fan of The First Minute by Chris Fenning. While the book is about framing conversation (essentially, starting a conversation in a way that gets people into context immediately), I have found that his formula for framing (Context + Intent + Key Message) works extremely well for setting meeting outcomes.
In summary, not all meetings are bad, and not all meetings are good - but it’s not that difficult of a problem to fix. Try, learn, and adapt.
-A