Jan. 19, 2021
Minimal structure every meeting should have
Meetings are omnipresent, and they are often a waste of time. Why? Because they often lack structure and have no clear goal. It is easy to invite people to a meeting and giving it a headline like "Strategy" and everyone can have an own understanding of what that could mean. It is also luring because just setting up a meeting can give you the feeling that you are doing something, to solve a problem. And, strangely enough, many people will just accept your calendar invitation and share your feeling that you are working on an issue together. After an hour of meeting you discussed a lot and get the impression that you made huge progress only to ask yourself the next day how to proceed with the strategy and who does what. It will take you a lot of effort to connect the dots and make sense out of your messy meeting notes that you took.
If you invest time in planning a meeting and energy in facilitating it, you can save lots of people lots of time. There is a template called IDOARRT, which stands for "Intention, Desired Outcome, Agenda, Roles, Rules and Time", which is the gold standard of preparing meetings. This however requires a significant amount of time to prepare and a strong will to enforce rules and roles, especially when you work with the same people over and over (such as in a software team). A minimal version that requires less preparation, is less formal and also considers that you always do detours from the main topic could look as follows:
- Why do we meet?
- What is the desired result (decisions, action points)?
- Which topics do we need to talk about (ordered by descending priority)?
- What else did we briefly talk about? (aka the parking lot)? (you will fill this during the meeting and stop off-topic discussions with: "I put it in the parking lot, so we will not forget. Let us get back to the point!")
Minimal structure every meeting should have
Meetings are omnipresent, and they are often a waste of time.
Why?
Because they often lack structure and have no clear goal.
It is easy to invite people to a meeting and givinge it a headline like "Strategy" andwhich everyone can have an own understanding of what that could meaninterprets in their own way.
It is also alluring because just setting up a meeting can give you the feeling that you are doing something, to solve a problem.
And, strangely enough, many people will just accept your calendar invitation and share your feeling that you are working on an issue together.
After an hour of meeting you discussed a lot and get the impression that you made huge progress only to ask yourself the next day how to proceed with the strategy and who does what.
It will take you a lot of effort to connect the dots and make sense out of your messy meeting notes that you took.
If you invest time in planning a meeting and energy in facilitating it, you can save lots of people lots of time.
There is a template called IDOARRT, which stands for "Intention, Desired Outcome, Agenda, Roles, Rules and Time", which is the gold standard of preparing meetings.
This however requires a significant amount of time to prepare and a strong will to enforce rules and roles, especially when you work with the same people over and over (such as in a software team).
A minimal version that requires less preparation, is less formal and also considers thae fact you will always do detoursstray from the main topic could look as follows:
- Why doare we meeting?
- What is the desired result (decisions, action points)?
- Which topics do we need to talk about (ordered by descending priority)?
- What else didcan we briefly talk about?
Your checklist before this point seemed like a plan of action, so the checklist should all have future tense. If it was intended to be a review of the meeting, then the rest of the checklist should be changed to past tense.
(aka the parking lot)?
(you will fill this during the meeting and stop off-topic discussions with: "I will put it in the parking lot, so we will not forget. Let us get back to the point!")
Jan. 20, 2021
Thank you very much for the corrections!
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Minimal structure every meeting should have This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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Meetings are omnipresent, and they are often a waste of time. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
Why? This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
Because they often lack structure and have no clear goal. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
It is easy to invite people to a meeting and giving it a headline like "Strategy" and everyone can have an own understanding of what that could mean. It is easy to invite people to a meeting and giv |
|
It is also luring because just setting up a meeting can give you the feeling that you are doing something, to solve a problem. It is also alluring because just setting up a meeting can give you the feeling that you are doing something |
|
And, strangely enough, many people will just accept your calendar invitation and share your feeling that you are working on an issue together. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
After an hour of meeting you discussed a lot and get the impression that you made huge progress only to ask yourself the next day how to proceed with the strategy and who does what. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
It will take you a lot of effort to connect the dots and make sense out of your messy meeting notes that you took. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
If you invest time in planning a meeting and energy in facilitating it, you can save lots of people lots of time. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
There is a template called IDOARRT, which stands for "Intention, Desired Outcome, Agenda, Roles, Rules and Time", which is the gold standard of preparing meetings. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
This however requires a significant amount of time to prepare and a strong will to enforce rules and roles, especially when you work with the same people over and over (such as in a software team). This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
A minimal version that requires less preparation, is less formal and also considers that you always do detours from the main topic could look as follows: A minimal version that requires less preparation, is less formal and also considers th |
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- Why do we meet? - Why |
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- What is the desired result (decisions, action points)? This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
- Which topics do we need to talk about (ordered by descending priority)? This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
- What else did we briefly talk about? - What else Your checklist before this point seemed like a plan of action, so the checklist should all have future tense. If it was intended to be a review of the meeting, then the rest of the checklist should be changed to past tense. |
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(aka the parking lot)? This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
(you will fill this during the meeting and stop off-topic discussions with: "I put it in the parking lot, so we will not forget. Let us get back to the point!") (you will fill this during the meeting and stop off-topic discussions with: "I will put it in the parking lot, so we will not forget. Let us get back to the point!") |
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