Stop having pointless meetings(medium.com)
medium.com
Stop having pointless meetings
https://medium.com/rapport-blog/stop-having-pointless-meetings-67870777aa76
2 comments
In the 18 years I have worked in the defense industry I can say with all honesty that every single meeting I have attended that had no agenda distributed to participants beforehand was a complete waste of time and taxpayer money. Managers that believe meetings can be productive with no agenda have plagued our feeble earth for far too long.
Not having an agenda is one thing. Not having an idea about what the meeting's result should be is another.
While the former is still unfortunate, it can easily be taken care of within the meeting collaboratively. The latter is harder to come up with in an ad-hoc fashion, but it's still possible.
I agree that in an optimal world, every meeting is planned appropriately beforehand and meetings that aren't necessary do not exist. In reality, that's not the case. So you have to deal with that.
Just complaining will not help.
While the former is still unfortunate, it can easily be taken care of within the meeting collaboratively. The latter is harder to come up with in an ad-hoc fashion, but it's still possible.
I agree that in an optimal world, every meeting is planned appropriately beforehand and meetings that aren't necessary do not exist. In reality, that's not the case. So you have to deal with that.
Just complaining will not help.
"Let's make meetings even more useless"
Slack has cut back on meetings for me, but I'm not sure if it's saved me time overall.
In that case, do the following:
* At the beginning of the meeting, do a check-in. Everyone says what's different after the meeting has been finished successfully — preferably in one sentence.
* At the end of the meeting, do a check-out. Everyone says whether the meeting has been successful for him and, if not, why and what could be done differently next time.
It's also helpful to include your personal mood or things that block you from contributing in the check-in. This helps others help you in getting the most out of it.
Last but not least, if the check-in reveals that someone is not needed in the meeting, double-check if that's really the case with the team and then let him/her leave.