On making meetings meaningful
Jan. 6th, 2008 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
debgeislerI've just seen an exchange, querying the schedule for a meeting in March (one I shan't attend...for a variety of reasons). This meeting will be attended by several dozen people (and should, by rights, be attended by nearly 100 people). It is a working meeting over a weekend. And it is not well scheduled because, right now, only an amorphous schedule really exists.
Nothing is worse than a meeting where people need to travel great distances...and where they discover that the meeting has little meaning for them personally. Such meetings tend to ensure that subsequent meetings are ill attended (even though the project end-date grows nearer and nearer). And if they are meandering, poorly-structured meetings, they encourage inattention and a lack of concern about the meeting content.
In a project several years ago, we recognized that (1) we needed regular meetings of a distributed (but relatively small) management core, and they needed to be face-to-face and intensive; (2) we needed several additional meetings of a deeper (and larger) management group, and they needed to be face-to-face and intensive; and (3) we wanted the meetings to be meaningful for everyone who attended.
"Executive" group meetings
We established a schedule for our high-level management group. This included 8-9 weekend-long meetings (at which everyone attended) and 4-5 shorter meetings (when the bulk of us were in the same place at the same time for a day or so). Then we looked at the needs for the wider group meetings: build a sense of esprit de corps, identify key issues and deadlines, give people face time with each other, and do nitty-gritty planning.
Our "senior" management meetings typically involved a good 15-20 hours of structured (agend-driven) discussion time, plus a whole slew of group social discussions (over meals, etc.). They were draining, and very effective. We established the preliminary agendas for the larger group meetings as part of some of these management team weekends (with the rest hashed out in email afterward).
Enterprise-wide meetings
The more diverse meetings were set up like conventions, and a specific agenda (including "program items" where we knew groups needed to get together) was developed. Meal times were included (and were slightly lengthened on the assumption that people would be meeting over lunch, etc.), and we had meetings in the evenings, too. Things were densely packed, because nobody likes to travel three time zones to find out there's almost nothing going on. We published the schedule several weeks in advance, but even earlier than that we made clear what areas were going to be the focus of each meeting (so that people not related to those areas didn't feel they needed to make airline reservations).
One of the biggest problems we'd seen from past activities was a tendency to run everything as plenary sessions -- everybody in one large room; everybody having to sit through everything; most of the people feeling they had no meaningful contribution; most of the people bored out of their skulls. The biggest advantage of these larger meetings (and the one we needed to nurture) was the opportunity to engage in lateral discussions -- between areas.
We tried for not more than 1 hour of plenaries per large meeting -- a greeting, a brief morning session, and some closing remarks. In retrospect, 1.5-2 hours per weekend meeting of the larger group is probably more sensible, but nobody felt they had to sit there and be bored by hearing all of the details of budgeting when they were in a very specific position (and had no budgetary control, anyway).
And we laughed. There was joy and silliness. We understood that a certain amount of that was inevitable (and damned healthy) and we didn't try to kill it all -- instead, we moderated it and used it to build that spirit of camaraderie.
So these days, when I see people working on this same sort of project falling back into the old traps...where the only useful meetings appear to happen "off the clock"...it's frustrating. Granted that every group is different, but we need to think more carefully about what a meeting is, what it should be for the people who attend, and what we want to accomplish at it.
Tips we learned
I will not take personal credit for this; we developed it as a management team. Was it effective? Our people thought so. After one of our best meetings, I had someone come up to me in tears. He said, "This is how I always thought things *could* be. Thank you for letting me be part of it." Boy, that's heady stuff.
Nothing is worse than a meeting where people need to travel great distances...and where they discover that the meeting has little meaning for them personally. Such meetings tend to ensure that subsequent meetings are ill attended (even though the project end-date grows nearer and nearer). And if they are meandering, poorly-structured meetings, they encourage inattention and a lack of concern about the meeting content.
In a project several years ago, we recognized that (1) we needed regular meetings of a distributed (but relatively small) management core, and they needed to be face-to-face and intensive; (2) we needed several additional meetings of a deeper (and larger) management group, and they needed to be face-to-face and intensive; and (3) we wanted the meetings to be meaningful for everyone who attended.
"Executive" group meetings
We established a schedule for our high-level management group. This included 8-9 weekend-long meetings (at which everyone attended) and 4-5 shorter meetings (when the bulk of us were in the same place at the same time for a day or so). Then we looked at the needs for the wider group meetings: build a sense of esprit de corps, identify key issues and deadlines, give people face time with each other, and do nitty-gritty planning.
Our "senior" management meetings typically involved a good 15-20 hours of structured (agend-driven) discussion time, plus a whole slew of group social discussions (over meals, etc.). They were draining, and very effective. We established the preliminary agendas for the larger group meetings as part of some of these management team weekends (with the rest hashed out in email afterward).
Enterprise-wide meetings
The more diverse meetings were set up like conventions, and a specific agenda (including "program items" where we knew groups needed to get together) was developed. Meal times were included (and were slightly lengthened on the assumption that people would be meeting over lunch, etc.), and we had meetings in the evenings, too. Things were densely packed, because nobody likes to travel three time zones to find out there's almost nothing going on. We published the schedule several weeks in advance, but even earlier than that we made clear what areas were going to be the focus of each meeting (so that people not related to those areas didn't feel they needed to make airline reservations).
One of the biggest problems we'd seen from past activities was a tendency to run everything as plenary sessions -- everybody in one large room; everybody having to sit through everything; most of the people feeling they had no meaningful contribution; most of the people bored out of their skulls. The biggest advantage of these larger meetings (and the one we needed to nurture) was the opportunity to engage in lateral discussions -- between areas.
We tried for not more than 1 hour of plenaries per large meeting -- a greeting, a brief morning session, and some closing remarks. In retrospect, 1.5-2 hours per weekend meeting of the larger group is probably more sensible, but nobody felt they had to sit there and be bored by hearing all of the details of budgeting when they were in a very specific position (and had no budgetary control, anyway).
And we laughed. There was joy and silliness. We understood that a certain amount of that was inevitable (and damned healthy) and we didn't try to kill it all -- instead, we moderated it and used it to build that spirit of camaraderie.
So these days, when I see people working on this same sort of project falling back into the old traps...where the only useful meetings appear to happen "off the clock"...it's frustrating. Granted that every group is different, but we need to think more carefully about what a meeting is, what it should be for the people who attend, and what we want to accomplish at it.
Tips we learned
Doing meetings right is hard. It shouldn't be as painful as we sometimes make it. It helps more than I can say to really think about what you're doing and why before scheduling any meeting -- and to remember both the task and the maintenance functions of effective group management.Publish the schedule far enough in advance that people can decide if they need to attend. Publish a more specific schedule (and have copies available online and at the meeting) so people know exactly what will be discussed. Set up meetings to get people doing related functions talking across areas and engaging in lateral thinking. Remember to encourage social gatherings that also can be useful meetings. Use plenaries to give group a sense of togetherness and to recap progress from this and previous meetings. But keep them short. Consider using a plenary for all people to introduce themselves -- you'd be surprised how effective this still is. Be sure to have more AV/tech resources than you think you'll need. You'll need them. Let anyone who wants attend any other meeting (so long as they don't stint on their own working meetings). You can get keen insights from people looking from the outside in. Just make sure that everyone understands these are working meetings. Have a senior person (executive or executive staff) attend each and every individual break-out session meeting. Take copious notes. Publish those notes. Tell people running meetings to develop a list of understandings, deliverables, and deadlines as a result of discussions.
I will not take personal credit for this; we developed it as a management team. Was it effective? Our people thought so. After one of our best meetings, I had someone come up to me in tears. He said, "This is how I always thought things *could* be. Thank you for letting me be part of it." Boy, that's heady stuff.