Vain Meetings

All company meetings can be characterized by their goal:

1. To exchange some information (e.g. status meetings, reporting meetings).
   
2. To discuss some issue(s) and come to decision.
3. To comment something that happened or is going to happen.
   

I've ordered these three goals by their popularity (most frequent goal is the first). But the same order is also valid for percentage of useless meetings (highest percent goes first).


Common important thing for all kinds of meetings is the audience. Missing some required person or having someone, who is not involved into the subject, significantly reduces effectiveness and sometimes becomes complete waste of time.


But let's continue talking only about the 1st kind of meetings, because they "kill" much more valuable time than all others together.


The reason is quite simple. We are so used to such information exchange meetings, so almost nobody tries to think if particular meeting is really required, but just schedules it...


There is a short questionnaire that can help you to identify problems related to particular information exchange and decision making meetings:

• Is there enough information to create meeting followup letter?

Nothing to say about the meeting results? Probably, the meeting was completely useless...

• Is it possible to divide followup items in groups by people involved in an each particular issue? One person can be in one group only.
  

Do we have two or more groups? If so, it would be better to divide the meeting in smaller parts with reduced audience.

• (related to the question above) Do we have a group or groups of one participant only?
  

If so, then there was no need to invite these participants to the meeting. It would save their own and other's time.


Well, it seems like I've gone too far... Of course, information exchange meetings are still required and important:

1. People, who works in the same area, need time to communicate together. Status meetings fit this purpose until most participants really communicate there. If not, then the meetings are too often, or there are too many participants.
2. Reporting meeting are useful both for upper management and for colleagues to observe progress results. But if people becomes sleepy, then either meetings are too often (there is nothing new each time) or too long (there are a lot of unnecessary details).

Reporting, Discipline, and Motivation

Did you ever created a report, or asked for a report from your subordinates? It could be a problem report, regular status or progress report, or any other kind of summarized information.

Some reports are very useful, others are just waste of time.

A lot of bosses are sure that reporting is helpful to maintain discipline. True, until the person who prepares the report realizes that this information is really useful for someone (even for herself/himself). Boring and useless work is one of the strongest demotivating factors!

There is no need to look for a compromise between discipline and motivation. You can have them both in your team!


Useful reports

To get a good report, first of all, it's required to understand why this report is needed, and how it's going to be used.


Samples of bad reasons:

• just to have this report;
• to have something to read;
• to make someone thinking that she/he is under the control.

Samples of good reasons:

• to check how results correlate with the plan => to make adjustments if required;
  
• to analyze possible reasons of the problem => to fix the problem and adjust the process for future;
• to get more details in particular subject => to make a decision;
• to combine separate parts into a large picture => to make adjustments in a global plan or to report upper for even more global analysis.
  

As you can see, all good reasons assume further use of that information. It's simple, isn't it?