…Are Timeboxed
This helps us respect each other’s planned time for meetings - especially when many of our colleagues are
Working From Home (WFH) and sharing the same space with other family members.
In fact, by sticking to the planned time, you are not just respecting your colleagues, but also their families.
If you’re still not convinced, consider also how expensive meetings are to the company. Can you wholeheartedly justify the extra budget the company is spending when a meeting runs over the pre-approved budget (i.e. planned time) ?
tl;dr
Don’t just let meetings overrun!!
…Have an Agenda
Always prepare an agenda ahead of the meeting, even if it’s just one sentence.
Have you heard that saying of “the meeting that could have been an email” ? ;)
Help your colleagues prepare, rather than surprising them with topics they might not feel prepared to discuss at the specific point in time / without the necessary preparation / etc.
Let your colleagues choose whether they want to participate in the meeting or not (depending on agenda).
Remember that it is fine to turn down meeting invitations, because it can also mean “I trust you all to make this decision without me”.
When you run out of time, move the remaining agenda items to another slot that works for everyone.
Meetings with no agenda can simply be skipped!!! And you just won back some more capacity to work on your backlog!
… Are Brainstorming meetings, or just “a chat”
It is absolutely fine to have targeted, deeply technical discussions with your peers.
(it’s also fine to take a moment to talk about life, the universe and everything, with your peers, during work hours)
This post is not some kind of ban on meetings altogether. It is here to remind you how expensive and wasteful meetings can be. Keep them lean!
… Are Focused
Now that we’ve got all the above out of the way:
it is not ok to do other work while participating in a meeting that operates on the above principles.