Teams

Topless meetings for team focus?

Merlin — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:04:54 -0400

When it's hard to stay focused, try going 'topless' to meetings - San Jose Mercury News

Our good pals over at Adaptive Path have been experimenting with banning laptops and other communication devices in meetings (something I've supported in the past). From today's Mercury News:

Frustrated by distracted workers so plugged in that they tune out in the middle of business meetings, a growing number of companies are going "topless," as in no laptops allowed. Also banned from some conference rooms: BlackBerrys, iPhones and other personal devices on which so many have come to depend...

But as laptops have gotten lighter and smart-phones even smarter, people have discovered a handy diversion, making more eye contact these days with their screens than one another. The practice became so pervasive that Todd Wilkens turned to his company blog to wage his "personal war against CrackBerry..."

His San Francisco design firm, Adaptive Path, now strongly encourages everyone to leave their laptops at their desks. His colleague, Dan Saffer, coined the term "topless" as in "laptop-less." Also booted are mobile and smart-phones, which must be stowed on a counter or in a box during meetings. It took some convincing, but soon people began connecting with one another rather than with their computers, Wilkens said.

"All of our meetings got a lot more productive," he said.

[via Dan Saffer]

The Question to You

Has your team tried some version of topless meetings? How did it work for you? Anybody tried it and given up? How did the meetings change without the toys being on?

”Topless meetings for team focus?” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 25, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Vox Pop: Patterns for email as work conversation?

Merlin — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:10:33 -0400

Inbox Zero is a system and philosophy that most benefits people who are overwhelmed by a high-volume of mystery meat email. The system works because it's stupid-simple, and the real art comes out of getting fast and ruthless at identifying requests for your time and attention that must be acknowledged or completed vs. the vast majority of stuff that needs very light attention (or can just get deleted).

But, not so fast -- what if, instead, you're receiving a high volume of easily identifiable messages? And what if your main "action" is reading, digesting, and then contributing? That's a bit trickier, as I have learned.

Every time I give the Inbox Zero talk to a tech-heavy group -- and most especially when I talk with engineers -- there's pushback on a couple issues. First, a lot of techies say they love it when everything gets routed through email, and second, they think an Inbox-Zero-type methodology isn't particularly useful for the type of communication that they get all day long. And that's conversations. Lots of conversations.

For many tech folks, email is the ideal and preferred way to avoid meetings and pointless flights. It's where they discuss features, debate implementation, and argue over the best solution to a problem. And that's how they like it. Some companies I visit with tell me they take pride in generating over 1000 person-messages each day. That's their culture, and love it or leave it.

This doesn't mean there's not room for improvement, but of course it's a valid and very real way to work.

Do stay tuned after the jump for your chance to join the conversation with comments and tips for managing conversational email, but first here's my observations on a few patterns that seem to work for a high volume of conversation based email:

Threading - you benefit greatly from an email app that lets you view messages grouped by conversation. This makes it easy to focus on one discussion as well as leap ahead as needed without distratction
Processing - Regardless of your style, I think it's still very valuable to process to zero on a regular basis, pulling out all the non-conversational emails that can be converted to action or immediately deleted. (more on processing email)
Filtering - It still seems valuable to identify lists and conversations that need less attention (or just don't need attention right now) so that you can keep them from grabbing you away from the nitty gritty. (more on filtering email)
Standards (esp. on subject and quoting) - Having a "house style" that your team agrees to use for subject lines and quoting will save you much heartache. If you've ever had to catch up on the latest additions to a three-week-old, high-volume thread, you'll instantly know whether everyone was on the same page.
Muting - I love mute functionality like that found in GMail. Basically, this let's you say "this is a conversation I don't need to follow any more," and new messages in the thread are archived automatically
Save and Search - Short, attachment-free, well-quoted messages make archiving and search a less-than-typical pain, so you can feel fine about saving old messages for as long as they remian useful to you. Then you can just pull them up via search as needed for historical purposes.

The Question to You

If your job requires you to keep up with a very high-volume of conversation email, please share your favorite tricks. Is the high-volume list-based system working for you? What helps you keep on top of things? What bits of Inbox Zero do and don’t help? If you could change one thing about the way your team handles email conversations today, what would it be?

”Vox Pop: Patterns for email as work conversation?” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 12, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Reviving a moribund project with Doodle

Merlin — Tue, 29 May 2007 10:23:22 -0400

Doodle: Scheduling meetings

Maybe this is the GTD-er in me, but I have to admit a frustration with projects that peter off because there's no one person near the helm who's dedicated to defining and managing the group's actions. It's a Project Manager role, and if a group doesn't choose and empower one person to take care of it, stuff simply won't get done. Whether it's deciding on a good night for dinner with friends or organizing the next board meeting, we all need a little help turning generic good ideas into real-world coordinates for action.

So, lately, I've found myself informally assuming this role, driving a surprising number of gone-fallow projects just by using Doodle to propose a simple check-in. The bottom line is that this process of getting a stupid 15-minute call on the calendar of several busy people will tell you so more than you can imagine about where you and your project stand. But where's Doodle enter in to it?

As I've mentioned before, Michael Näf's web application is an extremely simple tool for fixing a seemingly simple problem: at what common time and date are multiple people available for a call or meeting? It accomplishes this by emailing participants and asking them to visit a web page where they can choose all their available times from any number of suggestions that the host has laid out. The results are tallied, the winning time emerges, and you're ready to block the time on everyone's calendars. Bob's your uncle.

On the face of it, this task seems so idiotically simple that you could be forgiven for wondering why it requires a web tool to help accomplish it. You just send an email to 10 people asking their availability for a notional meeting at some point in the future, and they each respond with timely, thoughtful, and generous options for their time, right? Mmmm hmm. Sure.

Thing is -- as anyone who has ever undertaken this seemingly modest job can tell you -- scheduling a meeting can be fractally complex as you play whack-a-mole with participants' multi-time-zone schedules.

First, even if a group of people all theoretically agree that a call or meeting is a good idea, it's typical for all the various players to just mill around for days or weeks, tending to their lives and giving each other the thumbs up, until one member -- usually the poor schmo who actually needs that call or meeting to happen -- gets stuck with having to wrangle the scheduling. So, off goes the schmo to play half-time email secretary for a week. But, Doodle, above all else, can be a proactive way to put a stake in the ground. You propose a handful of different times when you are available, then ask people to identify which of those will work for them.

Do you get what's happening there? You're no longer talking about whether a meeting is a good idea or whether it should happen at some point: you're putting specific dates and times in front of people, which renders all the ontological debates foregone. People just need to pick from a list or propose more times. In any case, you've put something out there.

Of course, as is often the case, you will still find slow responders or people with zero availability (or, let's be honest, zero interest), so you sometimes have to start over, working with the members of your group who are really there to play ball.

Either way, you are the one getting things in motion rather than gamely waiting for some hero to arrive and start your orange for you.¹ Only now, you can start making decisions with a better indication of whose attention you can count on to move your atrophied little project to completion.

Another thing I like is that Doodle is not a person. It just collects information and makes a logical decision. It's a web page, so it has no agenda to discern or tone to misinterpret. It doesn't have to pick through two dozen emails and cope with badly worded updates. Plus it never calls in sick or gets frustrated with people. Your task can be accomplished with a person, but why bother? This is why we have computers, yo.

Doodle is just a little robot who's happy to work hard, stay up late, and, when necessary, take the heat for you. It not only gets the ball back in motion: it quickly gives you the feedback (or telling lack of feedback) needed to make smart decisions about who you can count on to help get things done.

Not bad for a Swiss robot with a funny name.

1. Metaphor credit to Janeane Garofolo, author of the statement, "I have a very 'Can you start my orange?' outlook on life." (People asked)

”Reviving a moribund project with Doodle” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on May 29, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Ideamatt on GTD with support staff

Merlin — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 06:11:10 -0500

Matt's Idea Blog: Best practices for GTD and administrative assistants

Matt Cornell has posted some useful notes on emerging best practices for doing GTD with an administrative assistant. There's some practical and thoughtful stuff here, and I recommend having a look.

While I have a gut feeling most 43f readers probably don't have/are not a dedicated admin, I know that most of you do work on teams and do have support staff (or are support staff). And one of the constant themes I hear from people is the need for more advice on how to implement GTD practices outside one's own half-acre (here's my interview with David Allen about just that issue). Articles like Matt's can be useful in considering how information might flow with less friction in your workplace. Great way to get the conversation going, for sure.

I think the theme I like best here may have virtually nothing to do with GTD, strictly speaking, but has everything to do with informal standards, team culture, and divisions of labor. As David said numerous times in our recent interviews, you want to get to the point where you don't need to interrupt one another to trust that any new input makes a responsible entry into a team member's world. But that requires certain shared expectations and, in many cases, a physical external system that everyone understands and utilizes.

To this end, I like Matt's notes on collection:

AA answers phone, takes messages. exec gives personal # out to those requiring direct access. NB: 'phone logs' not recommended

similarly, AA might process email. controversy: possibly better for exec to see all emails herself (only she knows importance)

exec has an OUT box on desk that is AA's IN box (AA checks regularly during day)

AA and exec communicate using inboxes (helps reduce interruptions - for non-urgent items)

exec dictates notes, AA transcribes

use secretary to filter reading material (should know preferences) when exec's away: AA sorts mail into three priorities. look at in first hour after getting back

I suspect that bringing back the physical inbox -- and then (importantly!) deriving a shared set of team expectations about how to use it -- might be the most profound and least costly thing that could be done to improve productivity in the physical office workspace.

And some of the tips under "Final points" can be useful as best practices in any team workplace.

Grab-and-Go Strategy #25 (from Morgenstern): "Create a clear division of labor - specify who is responsible for what."

get AA up-to-speed on own process, e.g., GTD. Might use a simplified system, since the AA's project is the exec. for example, create file folders for mail passing: urgent, to do, to approve, to sign, to read, to file, to toss.

give the AA some interrupt-free, private time blocks - have someone else cover the phones

let others know your AA is your surrogate

keep each other informed - where you're going, when you'll be back, etc.

don't interrupt AAs unless urgent

if giving too much to AA, prioritize it

How are you implementing GTD on your team? Whether you are or have support staff, talk about how you delegate work and use inboxes -- both physical and digital -- as a trusted system.

”Ideamatt on GTD with support staff” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on December 11, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

David Allen Interview: Getting Things Done with Email

Merlin — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 08:00:50 -0500

Productive Talk #05: Email

43 Folders and The David Allen Company present the fifth in a series of conversations that David and Merlin recently had about Getting Things Done.

Summary

In this episode, David and Merlin talk about email. We learn that David coaches people to deal with a high volume of messages by treating them like you would any other input.

(Running time: 17:53)

Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen here (after the cut).

Merlin's comments

Email was one of the topics that I was most interested in talking to David about, and I found his responses to my questions thought-provoking.

David makes the case that email is basically just another input -- like voice mail, for example -- that needs to be emptied and processed every day. That it's not substantially different (apart from how badly mostly people do it right now).

While I absolutely agree on processing to zero, I think opinions may differ on the significance of email's impact on the life of the average knowledge worker.

I think David's approach and advice are tactically quite sound in terms of fixing your own half-acre of the problem, but I'm still ambivalent about a prevailing culture of email in which the implied expectation is that we always need to be on_, for example, responding to business-day messages within minutes of their arrival. My friends working down in the Valley (you know who you are) tell me this is the elephant in the room in terms of trying to get _anything accomplished between 8 and 6.

While email has matured in terms of adoption, I think we're still in the very early days of understanding how to use it responsibly across teams and organizations -- we're still a long way from seeing a standard for sound email usage that acknowledges that most "real work" can and should take place outside of an inbox. I really look forward to seeing how we can each help to initiate these conversations in our own circles.

In the mean time, you'll love hearing David's advice on Getting Things Done in email. He has a way of cutting to the point that I find really refreshing. Also watch for his prediction on the Blackberry's inevitable progeny: _The Watermelon!_

Listen to Episode #05 of Productive Talk

Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen from here:

”David Allen Interview: Getting Things Done with Email” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 30, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

43f interview: David Allen on Getting Things Done with your team

Merlin — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 10:00:33 -0400

Productive Talk #04: Teams

43 Folders and The David Allen Company present the fourth in a series of conversations that David and Merlin recently had about Getting Things Done.

In this episode, David and Merlin talk about the role of GTD in teams and how to lead by example.

(Running time: 08:46)

Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen from here:

”43f interview: David Allen on Getting Things Done with your team” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 23, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Mark Morford on de-cluttering (and the SF reuse culture)

Merlin — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 10:15:18 -0500

Why Do You Have So Much Junk? / Oh yes you do. And there are TV shows to prove it. Question is, what are you gonna do about it?

The always-enjoyable Mark Morford has a cure for the clutter in your life that doesn't involve gnashing of teeth or the intervention of a TV show. He calls it getting rid of stuff.

The cure is simple, so graceful that it will make you feel lighter and healthier and good the minute you start, and of course you can start right now and you don't even need any drugs or wine or nudity, though those always, always help.

This is what you do: You throw stuff out. You go through your closets and you fill up garbage bags and you even grab stuff you've clung to for years for no apparent reason, and you haul it all down to Goodwill or Salvation Army or (in the case of San Francisco) leave the usable stuff out in the street overnight and let the urban recycling phenomenon work its magic, as some lucky passerby scores your old futon and the three grungy frying pans you haven't used since 1987.

San Francisco's culture of "urban recycling" is real and it's very cool. Obviously, stuff left on the street gets picked up, but don't delude yourself Sister Suburb: it's not just hobos, methheads, and The Sand People snatching up your goodies. We all pick stuff up off the street.

Madeline and I know people whose whole (fancy overpriced) house was mostly furnished by "junk" from someone's curb. And the beauty part is, when you tire of it, you just stick it on your own curb, and the music goes round. You lose your clutter, gain some space, and make some anonymous Citizen a little happier.

I suspect there's a reason Craig's List started in San Francisco; it's a social city that's just not afraid to deal with other people's junk. (Sure, you can read that several ways; my pleasure.)

”Mark Morford on de-cluttering (and the SF reuse culture)” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on November 04, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Writing sensible email messages

Merlin — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 05:59:37 -0400

As we've seen before, getting your inbound email under control will give you a huge productivity boost, but what about all the emails you send? If you want to be a good email citizen and ensure the kind of results you're looking for, you'll need to craft messages that are concise and easy to deal with.

First: Understand why you're writing

Before you type anything into a new message, have explicit answers for two questions:

Why am I writing this?
What exactly do I want the result of this message to be?

If you can't succinctly state these answers, you might want to hold off on sending your message until you can. People get dozens, hundreds, even thousands of emails each day, so it's only natural for them to gravitate toward the messages that are well thought-out and that clearly respect their time and attention. Careless emails do not invite careful responses.

Think through your email from the recipient's point of view, and make sure you've done everything you can to try and help yourself before contacting someone else. If it's a valuable message, treat it that way, and put in the time to making your words count.

Get what you need

Although the possible topics and content of messages are theoretically endless, I'd propose that there are really just three basic types of business email.

Providing information - “Larry Tate will be in the office Monday at 10.”
Requesting information - “Where did you put the 'Larry Tate' file?”
Requesting action - “Will you call Larry Tate's admin to confirm our meeting on Monday?”

It should be clear to your recipient which type of email yours is; don't bury the lede. Get the details and context packed into that first sentence or two whenever you can. Don't be afraid to write an actual “topic sentence” that clarifies a) what this is about, and b) what response or action you require of the recipient.

Since the Larry Tate meeting on Monday has been moved from the Whale Room, could you please make sure the Fishbowl has been reserved and that the caterer has been notified of the location change? Please IM me today by 5pm Pacific Time to verify.

This isn't the place to practice your stand-up act. Keep it pithy, and assume that no one will ever read more than the first sentence of anything you write. Making that first sentence strong and clear is easily the best way to interest your recipient in the second sentence and beyond.

Write a great Subject line

You can make it even easier for your recipient to immediately understand why you've sent them an email and to quickly determine what kind of response or action it requires. Compose a great “Subject:” line that hits the high points or summarizes the thrust of the message. Avoid “Hi,” “One more thing...,” or “FYI,” in favor of typing a short summary of the most important points in the message:

Lunch resched to Friday @ 1pm
Reminder: Monday is "St. Bono's Day"--no classes
REQ: Resend Larry Tate zip file?
HELP: Can you defrag my C drive?
Thanks for the new liver--works great!

In fact, if you're relating just a single fact or asking one question in your email, consider using just the subject line to relate your message. As I've mentioned before, in some organizations, such emails are identified by adding (EOM)—for end of message—at the end of the Subject line. This lets recipients see that the whole message is right there in the subject without clicking to the view the (non-existent) body. This is highly appreciated by people who receive a large volume of mail, since it lets them do a quick triage on your message without needing to conduct a full examination.

Sadly, good email subjects have become something of a lost art, especially among more recent additions to the Interweb. It's a pity, because you're far more likely to get a favorable response from a busy person when they can quickly grok your message.

Brevity is the soul of...getting a response

It's completely depressing to check your email at 4:55 in the afternoon to discover a gothic novel of a message waiting for you, spilling down your screen the distance of 2 or 3 scrolling pages. It's certainly not the kind of thing that excites the desire to engage and respond. I mean just look at all that!

So, although—in typical Merlin fashion—I have only anecdotal evidence and hunches to prove this point, I'd wager that there's one visual trick most likely to improve your message's success: fit it onto one screen with no scrolling. There's a reason those web ads placed “above the fold” cost a lot more than the ones stuck down at the bottom; it's the only part of the page that you're virtually assured that anyone will see.

Whenever you can, try to distill your beautiful epistle down to just one or two points about a given topic, and then whittle that down to the point where there's plenty of white space left underneath your closing. Got more to say? Put it in separate emails with—again—excellent Subject lines, and a descriptive, concise opener.

What's the action here?

If your message includes any kind of request—whether for a meeting, a progress update, a pony ride, or what have you—put that request near the top of the message and clearly state when you will need it. Do not, under any circumstances, assume that your overwhelmed recipient will take the time to sift through your purple prose for clues about what they're supposed to be doing for you.

Depending on the style of your team and the volume of mail they create, you might even consider adding functional text headers to the top of the body outlining the exact nature of the message.

This email is:    [ ] actionable   [x] fyi        [ ] social
Response needed:  [ ] yes          [x] up to you  [ ] no 
Time-sensitive:   [ ] immediate    [ ] soon       [x] none

Sure, it's geeky, but how many minutes have you wasted panning through a sloppy “project update” email only to completely miss the changed deadline or work request buried in the penultimate paragraph?

Remove the guesswork from your messages by thinking of them like friendly, civil work orders; you must not be afraid to ask for what you want, especially if you have any desire to actually have the recipient give it to you.

More good ideas

Make it easy to quote - Power email users will quote and respond to specific sections or sentences of your message. You can facilitate this by keeping your paragraphs short, making them easy to slice and dice.
Don't chuck the ball - Emails to a thread are like comments at a meeting; think of both like your time possessing the basketball. Don't just chuck at the net every chance you get. Hang back and watch for how you can be most useful. Minimize noise.
A reminder never hurts - If you're following-up or responding to an email that's more than a few days old, provide context right at the opening. For example, "You wrote in February asking to be notified when the new asthma inhalers are in stock; here's a link to the items we've now made available on our site...."
Never mix, never worry - Unless your team really prefers to work that way, do not mix topics, projects, or domains of life in a given email. Inform everyone of Baby Tyler's adorable antics in a different message than the one with the downsizing rumors and budget warnings.
No thanks - I'm not married to this one, but I know a lot of people who swear by it. In more informal settings and in high-volume mail environments, it's not necessary to respond with a “Thanks” email whenever someone does what you asked. Save your gratitude for the next time you pass in the hall; a one-word “Thanks” email can be crufty and unnecessary. On the other hand, don't hesitate to thank someone for their time if they've truly done you a proper.
RTFM - If you're asking for help, make sure you've exhausted all the documentation and non-human resources you have at your disposal. When you do ask for help, be sure to quickly cover the solutions you've already tried and what the results were.
Skip the overture - If you're writing to a busy person with an actual question or request, resist the desire to swoon for 2,000 characters. Either write a fan letter or a useful email, but mixing them can seem tacky and disingenuous. Just go ahead and ask Gary Gygax for his autograph already.

[Thanks to Cory for exchanges and thoughts that contributed to this.]

”Writing sensible email messages” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 19, 2005. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"