Meetings

August 2019

Being a manager means communicating with the people and making sure that all team members are on the same page and have no obstacles to contribute toward the common goal.

Unfortunately, many people think that meeting is the only way of communication. I disagree!

"Hey team, we are behind schedule and the deadline is past due. Let's double our meetings to move faster." © PM from the neighborhood team

Cost of meetings

Many tech companies are proud that they work on real Agile methodology called SCRUM. A huge number of SCRUM coaches make their living out of coaching how to practice it correctly. And one of the main things they would teach you are 5 ceremonies - scheduled meetings:

Backlog grooming (product backlog refinement) - usually it's a couple of hours once a week for PO and a couple more people that suppose to help the team discuss the backlog tasks and ask questions upfront. Helpful for Product Owners as they share responsibility with the team. Often involve the entire team.
Sprint planning - once per sprint. 2-4 hours depending on the team once per 2 weeks where the team estimates efforts for tasks "in bananas" and sometimes split big user stories into smaller tasks, which are then distributed between team members by the lead.
Daily scrum - 15 mins every day with updates from each team member. Supposed to help keep track of the progress and eliminate obstacles earlier. Favorite meeting of all managers I know. Most useless meeting out of all 5 IMO.
Sprint review (internal demo) - 1-2 hours once per 2 weeks where engineers demonstrate the results of their weekly work.
Sprint retrospective - a couple of hours once per 2 weeks where the team discusses good and bad from the previous two weeks. Very

For 6 members team, It makes a total of more than 80 hours per 2 weeks. Basically, it adds a cost of an extra engineer to the team.

But I think that the worst part of it is that after doing all these activities Project Managers consider that their job is done. Which cost companies much more.

Alternatives? RTFM

Need to explain a concept on the call? Consider writing a document.

The benefits of documentation are obvious:

It will be possible to share it with multiple people at different time
It is available for new team members
The document is available for multiple reading
The document can have visual illustrations
Writing the document helps to organize thoughts better and think about the topic again

I admire meeting policies from Jeff Bezos and Basecamp and strongly recommend to follow.

My Perfect Meeting

Similar to Jeff Bezon and Jason Fried I think that meetings are not always the best use of time and often do not improve team productivity. Though I think they're unavoidable and actually helpful if organized correctly.

Have meeting owner

Why is the meeting happening? Who requested it and who owns the outcomes?
Identify the owner of the meeting, who is most interested in outcomes, and who will drive the meeting forward and make sure that people stay on topic, on time, and in focus. The owner is not always the most senior manager in the room.

The owner takes charge and ensures that everyone has a chance to speak, everyone understands the goals for the meeting, and allocates tasks and action items.

Have an agenda

Meetings must be structured and have a clear purpose which is understood by all attendees. The meeting owner or organizer must prepare the agenda and get other attendees to contribute before the meeting so that everyone starts the meeting prepared.

Calendar invitations are much more useful if used correctly. Use invitation notes for sharing the meeting agenda, if you do not have a separate tool in the company for this.

Make meetings shorter

Schedule short meetings to keep participants focused on the goal and topic of the meeting. Short meetings force no wasted time — small talk is minimized and people get right to the point. If you can keep meeting for 15-30 minutes max.

Start on time

The meeting owner must take control, start the meeting and move on even if not all participants are on time. This can be difficult to enforce — so cancel a meeting once or twice if needed, piss everyone off, and teach them a lesson.

Do not invite unnecessary people

If you are the meeting owner, make sure that only people who have valuable input or who must get important information are participating. I've seen too many people in meetings who could spend their time much more valuable elsewhere.

Before inviting someone, make sure you understand what this person will bring to the table or what she or he will get from it. think maybe it would be enough to share meeting notes or key decisions with that person.

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