Meetings

Video: "Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them)"

Merlin — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 15:40:08 -0400

A couple weeks ago, my pals at Twitter were kind enough to invite me in to visit with their (rapidly growing) team. The topic was meetings, so I used it as an opportunity to publicly premiere a talk I've been presenting to private clients over the past few months.

I hope you'll enjoy, Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them).

Slides:

Supplementary links and commentary forthcoming, but I wanted to go ahead and post the talk as quickly as the video was available. Special thanks to Michelle, Jeremy, and the crackerjack Twitter crew for a swell afternoon.

I really like this talk and sincerely hope you will find it useful in helping to un-break your own meetings.

”Video: "Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them)"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 06, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

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?"

Meeting Tokens, for creating time scarcity

Merlin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:16:51 -0400

My pal, Mike Monteiro, is making good on his idea to try giving his team Meeting Tokens.

Previously mentioned in this post about re-creating scarcity and, in more detail, in my IDEO talk.

Can't wait to hear how it goes. I love me some scarcity.

Update, 2007-10-19 10:18 PT: Mike says he's going to produce these as handsome wooden tokens that will soon be available for sale in sets on the Mule Feed Store.

Update 2007-10-20 14:52 PT: Mike adds "The Red Merlin" to the mix.

Each bag of meeting tokens will include ONE Red Merlin. It's up to you to decide how it gets in someone's hands.

Playing the Red Merlin ends ANY meeting on the spot. No questions. (Beware of retaliation though; play it to make allies, not to make enemies.)

I'm honored.

”Meeting Tokens, for creating time scarcity” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 19, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Field Reports: Guerrilla Office Tactics

Merlin — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 10:45:04 -0400

I've started collecting stories -- some of which may be entirely apocryphal tall tales -- of the purported lengths to which people are going to filter noise and to ensure that their time and attention aren't ceded to bad ideas, thoughtless people, or garden-variety time burglars.

Here's a few of the more novel ones I've picked up. I'd also love to hear your favorites from amongst the cheats, tricks, and squirrely rules you've heard about:

Before you flame me

I’m not saying I necessarily promote or recommend any of these for you (or anyone, for that matter) — I just think they’re a fascinating snapshot of the lengths people need to go to today in order to get a semblance of order in their environment.

Bozo filter - Filter into a "holding" folder every email message for which you are not the sole "TO:" recipient. This filter includes lists, "CC:"s, "BCC:"s, and any number of other bulk-y messages that were never destined for you alone. Then you check that folder once a day, and create compensating rules as needed.
Smoking the bacn - Similar to my "no press releases" trick, filter any email that contains the string "to unsubscribe." Although many of these certainly will be valuable (sign-ups, Google lists), that string means there's a good chance they're also bulk messages that are being generated automatically. And some folks want to only see those sorts of emails, again, once or twice a day -- and only when they have extra time (read as: don't interrupt me whenever someone on Facebook wants me to be a zombie, or whatever).
Trusted (and lazy) filter - For a very noisy, high-volume list, filter all messages except those by 2-3 people whom you really respect. When those people chime in, catch up with what they're responding to -- chances are good you haven't missed much and can use their appearance to get up to speed.
Lessons from Mr. Hand - One minute after a designated meeting time, the door to the meeting room closes, and latecomers ain't welcome. (I'd also note that this can have unintended consequences if you're the "late" guy and you happen to hate going to meetings)
No gadgets - Put a table by the door to the meeting room. If you want to come in to the meeting, any electronic device you brought with you stays there, powered-off. No grazing until a break or when the meeting is over. The thinking: if you have time to fiddle with your iPhone, you're clearly not needed in that part of the meeting, so why are you and your device even there?
Remove the comfort - Related to the "no gadgets" rule, some groups are reportedly trying to reduce meeting time by making it less fun and comfortable to sit around for an hour or two. This can range from no longer "catering" meetings with food and water, to shutting off wi-fi, to more extreme measures, such as no-chair meetings.

Yeah, sure, some of these are extreme, and some may get you fired or punched in the nose. But you have to admit, people are conducting some fascinating evolutionary experiments. Tempting stuff.

The Question to You

Have you heard of any tricks that teams and individuals are trying to keep the madness at bay? Any that you can verify are being used in your own group — and are they succeeding or failing? For the mentioned tricks you find abhorrent, what solutions do you think might work better?

”Field Reports: Guerrilla Office Tactics” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 01, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Vox Pop: Re-creating scarcity

Merlin — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:43:07 -0400

I have a friend who told me he was thinking about giving his project managers a weekly pile of chips that could be redeemed for person-hours in meetings. So, to schedule firewalled, group face-time, the PM would need to cough up the equivalent number of tokens from her pile. Thus, one, long, all-hands meeting might require the whole week's stack. While, fewer, shorter meetings with smaller groups made the pile go further.

It was just an idea, and I'm pretty sure he never implemented it, but I think it's a fascinating concept. Why? Because I love the idea of re-introducing scarcity into systems that lack boundaries.

Think how the internet in particular (for better and worse) is working to erase any sense of scarcity in our lives -- at least in terms of access to people and ideas. You can email anybody any time; you can divebomb onto someone's radar screen with an IM or SMS; you can have Amazon deliver almost anything to your door tomorrow morning; you can find and download from millions of files instantly; and, given the right tool, you can locate almost any fact in seconds.

But what about the very real (and truly limited) resources that involve human time and attention? Do we want to make ourselves as available as Google and Wikipedia are? Do we want our entire staff to be "always on" for anyone who wants them? What if, for example, emails to a distribution list cost something?

The Question to You

Have you thought about ways to re-introduce scarcity into your life and work? Are you or your team using any homemade systems to govern resources that might otherwise become overtaxed or abused? How would you solve the “too many long meetings” problem?

”Vox Pop: Re-creating scarcity” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 27, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Jeff Veen on simple tools, meetings, and leveraging the commute

Merlin — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 06:48:11 -0400

009: Interview: Jeffrey Veen, Part 2 | The Merlin Show

Click To Play

In this second segment of our interview with Jeffrey Veen (here's the previous one), Jeff talks about making the best of meetings (and the time around them), lofi capture, and the beauty of simple tools -- including both paper and UNIX apps.

I especially like when Jeff discusses how he uses his shuttle commute time; by knowing that he can rely on firewalled time to bookend each work day, Jeff can confidently lob tasks out of the moment and into that quiet and reliable commute session. I find this a very GTD-like practice in that it sets aside time for processing, organization, and reviewing -- leaving the hectic work day free for pure doing.

(BTW: here's the book on writing that we talked about: On Writing Well by William Zinsser)

Jeff Veen: Part 1
Jeff Veen: Part 2

”Jeff Veen on simple tools, meetings, and leveraging the commute” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 19, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Running More Productive Meetings

Merlin — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 09:35:06 -0500

I very much enjoyed Ethan's recent post about avoiding "vampire meetings" and thought I'd share a few of my own tips for getting the most out of your meetings -- primarily from the perspective of being the organizer and facilitator. For the love of God, please respect your poor colleagues' time.

Circulate an agenda - An agenda should show the planned steps that get the meeting from "here" to "there." It helps the participants prepare appropriately and anticipate the kind of information they might need to produce. Most importantly, it works as a contract with the participants: "here's why this is a great use of your time for n minutes."
Have a theme - Meetings shouldn't be meandering tours of each participant's frontal lobe (unless -- well -- unless that's the actual agenda). Make it clear why this meeting is happening, why each person is participating at a given time, and then use your agenda to amplify how the theme will be explored or tackled in each section of the meeting.
Set (and honor) times for beginning, ending, and breaks - There's nothing worse than a rudderless meeting that everyone knows will just prattle on until its leader gets tired of hearing himself talk. You own your meeting by putting up walls -- provide structure and be firm about respecting everyone's time. Give short bio and email breaks on a regular schedule. Honor the time walls.
No electronic grazing. Period. - Laptops closed. Phones off. Blackberries left back in the cube. You're either at the meeting or you're not at the meeting, and few things are more distracting or disruptive than the guy who has to check his damned email every five minutes. Schedule breaks for people to fiddle with their toys, but fearlessly enforce a no grazing rule once the meeting's back in session. Emergency call to take or make? They have to leave the room. No exceptions. If you're too busy to be at the meeting everyone else has made firewalled time for, just leave.
Schedule guests - Do not put thirty people in a room for three hours if twenty of them will have nothing to do for all but the last ten minutes. In your agenda, make it clear when people will be needed and you'll encourage best use of everyone's time. It's also extra incentive (or even an excuse) to tick off agenda items in a timely manner. ("Well, it looks like Henderson is here to share his sales report, so let's move on.")
Be a referee and employ a time-keeper - If you can afford it, have one person in the meeting be the slavish time-keeper so you, as the leader, can focus on facilitating, summarizing, clarifying, and just keeping things moving. Working closely with the time-keeper, you should not be afraid to announce things like "Okay, we have three minutes left for this, so let's wrap up with any questions you have for Alice, then move on."
Stay on target - Any item that can be resolved between a couple people offline or that does not require the knowledge, consent, or input of the majority of the group should be scotched immediately. Close ratholes. As soon as the needed permission, notification, or task assignment is completed, just move on to the next item.
Follow up - If you have been utilizing a project manager or note taker (and God knows you should), be sure to use a few minutes at the end for him or her to review any major new projects or action items that were generated in the meeting. Have the PM email the list of resolved and new action items to all the participants.
Be consistent - Take any of these tips that work for you -- and many certainly may not -- but understand one thing above all; meetings do not run themselves, and if you have any desire to make best use of valuable people's time, you'll need a firm hand and a lot of thoughtful planning. Set a pattern of being the one whose meetings don't suck and you'll start seeing the productivity, tone, and participation in your meetings consistently improve.

Aside: Understand -- this is coming from a man who often was compelled to spend the better part of one day a week on a bi-coastal video conference call with two dozen people. Staring. Wishing death. Listening to the CTO opine at length about how exciting it would be to build and sell a national yellow pages app from scratch. If there had been cyanide capsules on the table instead of M&Ms, I don't think I would have hesitated to indulge. "Boil the ocean" business models and long meetings are the cocktail for making Merlin wish harm upon himself.

”Running More Productive Meetings” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 21, 2006. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"