Meetings suck. They’re annoying to setup, they seem to drag on, they’re rife with disagreements, conflicting opinions, people talking over one another, and half the time you end them feeling like you’ve discovered more problems than you started with. They’re also what I spend almost half of my working life doing.
I don’t usually blog about work. I’m not sure why - I spend a ton of time at it, it’s something I think I’m relatively good at, and I’ve learned a lot as I’ve gone through the years at the company I’m currently at. Maybe I figured people wouldn’t be interested, or maybe I just felt that I didn’t have anything inspired to say. Whatever the reason, today I’m putting an end to that silence and I’m writing about meetings!
So, meetings suck. Everyone agrees with this. Everyone will also agree with the fact that they are a necessary evil. If anyone has ever tried to resolve something using e-mail and consensus, you know that it’s absolutely silly, takes forever, and you inevitably restart the entire process six or seven times.
Since getting people together into a room is necessary, the best thing we can do is take steps to make the process as smooth and efficient as possible. Here are some of the topics I’m going to cover:
- Agenda
- Leading a Meeting
- Speaking in Meetings
This should be a breeze… let’s move on.
Agenda
An agenda is essential to having a successful meeting. It’s that simple. Putting together an agenda is very simple, and the end result usually strikes people as insignificant because it doesn’t require a large amount of work. However, an agenda serves many purposes. A good agenda has a few things in particular:
- Table of contents
- Purpose
- Talking Points
- Summary of talking points
- Production server currently broken
What, really, I’m recommending tables of contents? Hell yah I am. Most of the time, people will look at your agenda very briefly, then resume whatever they’re working on. It’s the way our lifes work these days - constant intrusions by e-mail, instant messaging, and co-workers require that people lend their attention to something new only briefly before returning to their work. As this is the case, it is important that you provide people a way to glean as much information as possible, in as fast a manner as possible.
Provide a table of contents so that someone can quickly skim over your agenda, determine why they are invited to this meeting, what is being discussed, and if there is anything that has been missed.
Don’t skip this item.
Most people leave this out, because it seems unimportant. Of course everyone already knows why we are having this meeting is the common perspective. But why should that be the case? The person that called the meeting usually (definitely not always) knows why the meeting is being called, but the other attendees often are getting pulled into meetings simply because of applicable domain knowledge they may have. Providing a quick summary of the purpose of the meeting helps ensure that everyone gets on track.
Sometimes, just sitting down and trying to think about the purpose of the meeting can help you realize that you don’t even need to have a meeting. If this is the case, you’ve just avoided wasting everyone’s time.
The purpose of a meeting should be something that you can summarize in one or two sentences, and nothing more. Here’s a good summary of purpose:
The purpose of this meeting is to provide the client with three options on how to proceed with our development, and provide our recommendation
This is to the point, and gives a quick outline of what we should expect to see in the meeting.
Here’s a bad summary of purpose:
The purpose of this meeting is to provide the client with three options on how to proceed with our development. Even though we feel that option A and B are not the best choices, they are both cheaper than option C, which may help the client make their decision. Additionally, option C will require more work, so the client will want to consider that.
This gives away too much information, and spends too much time delving into the details. Let those get taken care of when you are actually meeting.
The talking points for an agenda are the main bulk of an agenda. They should be simple, concise, and convey only enough information to jog everybody’s memory about the issue to be covered. If this is new material then that’s fine, this should convey just enough information to give people an idea of what needs to be discussed.
Under each talking point should be a summary of the point itself. This should fill out any remaining information and set the tone for any discussion that needs to be had. Eg.
The production server has not been operational since December 24th. Until this is fixed, all work on development is impeded and cannot proceed. Would client like us to shift focus towards fixing this problem, or wait until the server is replaced?
Leading a Meeting
Before you even begin, someone needs to be leading a meeting. This is important for a number of reasons, but you can think back to the start of any group project as a helpful analogy to determine what happens without an effective lead. At the start, when you’re assigned your group, everyone is timid, unlikely to be pushy, and reticent about putting their opinion out there. Some of these things are good (pushy people are annoying and counter-productive), but people not saying what’s on their mind and speaking their opinions is a negative in the long run.
Having someone lead a meeting means having someone that will move the meeting forward. We’ve all sat through meetings where the first two hours was spent on one agenda item. This is not a good meeting. People go round and round the same point, without ever actually reaching a conclusion.
What should an effective meeting lead be doing? These things:
- Ensuring that everyone gets a chance to speak
- Keeping the meeting on track and sticking to the agenda
- Identifying when it’s time to move on
- Summarize the resolution prior to moving onwards
An unrealistic meeting is one where everyone leaves feeling like they got what they wanted. A good meeting is where everyone leaves feeling that they were heard. When meeting to reach a compromise, the former is usually unattainable. However, making sure that everyone feels they got heard is almost always something that can be achieved, and something that is important.
An effective lead will look and listen for cues that someone has something to say, and make an effort to bring that person into the conversation. Cues like the sharp intake of breath before someone is about to speak, a frown, or even shaking heads and rolling eyes are all indications that someone has something to say. Meetings often have people talking over one another, and it’s important to make sure a mental note of someone that was about to say something but got interrupted. If you are a leading the meeting, part of your role is to make sure that that interrupted thought gets heard.
If you’re not convinced yet, here’s another great reason to have an agenda: It helps you make sure your meeting is staying on track, and gives you something to point to when you need to bring others back to the discussion at hand.
It is inevitable that discussions will start to diverge and move off of track, it’s just the way conversations and people work. As an effective lead, you need to first be able to identify that this is happening, and then bring things back into the fold. The easiest way to identify divergence is to ask yourself if the current discussion actually relates directly to the purpose of the meeting. If it doesn’t, that’s a pretty good indication that the discussion needs to be stopped and taken offline.
Most people are hesitant to step up and suggest this, but the important distinction is to make sure that you recognize that the current topic is important - it’s just not necessary to the purpose at hand. Suggest that it may be important to schedule another meeting to deal with the divergent topic, and then bring the meeting back on track. If you still find this approach too aggressive, just ask the question: “Are we getting off track here?”
This point is similar to the previous one, but with an important distinction. Sometimes, the meeting will be on track, but you will feel that you’re starting to go around in circles. I wish that I had a pragmatic way to determine whether the topic is starting to get circular, but there isn’t one. Some hints to watch out for are reiterations of points that have already been made, the same problem being revisited. For me, it’s generally when one of my eyes start to twitch, or I notice that I’ve got all of the fingers in my hands pushing against each other which such force that I’m close to fusing atoms.
However you reach this conclusion, once you’ve arrived there, you need to speak up about it, and ask how to proceed. “It seems like we’re going around in circles here. Does anyone have any ideas for how we can get past this?”. Maybe the point being discussed isn’t actually that critical to your purpose. Maybe the problem that is going circular is actually a tangent, or can be worked around.
This is often the trickiest parts of a meeting, but it’s essential to moving things forward. If you’re not making progress, maybe it’s just time to take this specific item off the table, go away and do some investigation and thinking, and then reconvene at a later point.
Once your meeting attendees have reached a conclusion/decision/resolution for one of your talking points, summarize it before moving on. This will help crystallize the concept in everyone’s mind, and acts as a final opportunity for someone to bring up anything that they may have forgot earlier.
Holy crap this is getting long. We’re almost done though, let’s keep pushing forward.
Speaking in Meetings
Not everyone will need to worry about putting together agendas and leading meetings. In fact, most of the people out there will never need to worry about this, as they have no aspirations or desires to move into management positions. Even though I think it’s valuable to know how to do these things anyhow, this last step is important for everyone.
A lot of people in the tech industry are not known for their social ability. Speaking in public can be a tricky proposition for many, and meetings act as a miniature opportunity to do this. There’s a few simple mantras to keep in the back of your mind when you are speaking to make sure that you present yourself and your ideas in the most coherent manner possible:
- Don’t rant
- Don’t digress
- Summarize and stay on point
- Engage everyone
- Do you really need to speak?
It’s so tempting sometimes to rant, but it doesn’t serve any purpose. Not only that, but it’s rarely professional. Ranting is carthatic and helps to get something off of your chest, but find a better time and place to do this. One where you don’t have a captive audience and where you are not taking up the time of six or more busy people. Resist the temptation.
Most people don’t realize that they are digressing, and until it becomes natural, it’s something you have to mentally ask yourself when you’re speaking. Have you made your point? No? Then finish doing so. If yes, then stop talking. It’s that simple. I have been in many meetings where people make their point, then provide back up details. And then back up those details with further background. Ad nauseaum. This is time consuming, and difficult to handle, because while technically the material is still relevant, it is unnecessary. Present your point as succintly as possible, and then leave it up to the attendees to ask if they require further background.
In line with same point above, make sure that you are speaking succintly. Don’t throw in a lot of unnecessary words to make your point, and don’t ramble on. Say what you need to say, and then let other people comment. Have you been talking for longer than a minute? If so, you should really check in with yourself and consider whether or not you need to keep going. Most points can be explained in a minute. If you’re explaining something complicated, are you doing it as efficiently as possible?
This is the easiest item to act upon, and doesn’t require a lot. The tricky thing about meetings is that typically dominant or management-oriented personalities will emerge. These are the people that most often ask questions, and as a result, they’re the people that get addressed. However, everyone in a meeting is there for a reason, and it’s important to engage all of these people when you are speaking. Make a point of making eye contact with them when you are speaking, and avoid addressing only one person.
If you don’t engage your audience, you’ll find that they pay a lot less attention to what you’re saying. Make eye contact and engage and you’ll ensure that your point gets across.
Okay, last one here. This is a common mistake. Someone makes their point or completes their explanation, and then a coworker will jump in and reiterate the point that has been made. Clarification is good, but it’s important to really ask yourself if it’s necessary to add what you have to say. Keep in the back of your head that the goal of a meeting is to discuss what needs to be discussed, and then to get out. Everytime someone new speaks, there is additional mental overhead for people to change focus, zone in on what is being said, and then consider anything else that needs to be added. If you are merely reiterating a point that has been made, stop yourself from adding to this overhead.
Okay, that’s everything for now. This turned out to be way more material than I had originally anticipated, and I still have half a sheet of notes for another entry. I know that addressing the two people and one cat that read my blog is silly, but if anyone has anything specific related to management that they would like me to write about, please leave a comment. Suggestions are helpful!