Managing meetings
Meeting fatigue, zoom, fatigue, or too many meetings. Is there anything we can do about it as PMs?
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Recently, I was coaching someone who said that they were attending so many meetings that the only time they could get work done was in the evenings, working past midnight. Obviously, this wasn’t sustainable. In “Save time by mastering your schedule”, I advised how to “reject meetings and provide a reason”. But what if you’re the meeting organizer and you need people to attend. Can we make meeting more productivity or should we abolish meetings and institute more “no meeting days”?
Why have meetings?
There are five basic reasons people hold meetings, which I define as a gathering of 2 or more people.
Reach a decision
Share information
Collect information
Socialize (i.e., fun)
Work together to create something
The problem with many meetings is it’s not clear for participants, what’s the primary purpose for the gathering. Here’s a scenario.
A meeting starts with hellos and small talk (i.e., socialize). Once you reach quorum, someone talks about why everyone is here, trying to ensure participants have the same context (i.e., share information). Someone else adds some additional information (i.e., more sharing). A person asks a question (i.e., collect information) and someone answers (i.e., share information). Different people speak (i.e., share information) and someone makes a joke (i.e., socialize). A person brings the conversation back and summarizes the information by making a decisive statement. No explicit objections are brought up, but someone presents another perspective (i.e., share information). Time has run out as someone says they have to run to their next meeting early.
Sounds familiar?
As easy as it might be to criticize meetings, the problem isn’t with meetings, but how people use this tool.
There are other ways to socialize, share or collect information.
The meeting didn’t help reach a decision or create something.
Techniques changes depending on group size.
If a meeting is a gathering of 2 or more people, the techniques to effectively run a meeting will vary depending on the group size. I think there are four categories to consider: 🤼, 🍕, 🦆, and 🏙.
One-on-One (🤼) | 2 people > There are many different ways to run this type of meetings, depending on the relationship between the two individuals. Some examples include paired working sessions or manager and direct reports 1:1’s.
Pizzas (🍕) | 3 - 16 people > Read on.
Gaggle (🦆) | 16 - 25 people > This is on the border between a meeting and a lecture. It’s still small enough to have some small discussions, but also too large for those discussions to engage everyone. Outside the scope of this article.
Township (🏙) | 25+ people > This is a lecture because of the large size. A presentation may be needed for this type of meeting. Outside the scope of this article.
Steps to running meetings more efficiently for 3- 16 people.
Before diving into tactics, I want to briefly discuss the importance of understanding your company’s meeting culture.
A move towards more “efficient” meetings is certainly different today than the past. Here’s a business “conference” from the 1950s.
When embarking on changing how meetings are run, be aware of the new dynamics you are introducing. For example, the pandemic has ushered in more remote work, which increased autonomy and reduced commuting for some people. Simultaneously, it has introduced “Zoom fatigue” and reduced social spontaneity. Increasing meeting efficiency can create similar double edge swords that you may want to mitigate.
Dedicating coffee + socializing time. If you want to reduce socializing before and during meetings, introduce a dedicated time when people can come together to talk about the weekend or bullshit without feeling it’s unproductive. Setting this time aside can help set the boundary for establishing a rule of “no small talk” when a meeting starts.
Institute written documentation for information sharing and collection. Tired of meetings where someone just reads words from a slide? Institute a culture of written documentation that’s distributed asynchronously, with acknowledgement from recipients that it’s been read.
Give explicit instructions that it’s okay to decline meetings. While some companies have implemented “no meeting days” where the entire day is blocked for individual work, a less extreme version is for leaders to give explicit permission and instructions on how to reject meetings with “reject & provide a reason.”
Before meeting
Have an agenda with an end goal in mind.
You don’t need a fancy template with dates, attendees, location, etc. Instead, complete these two sentences and share it in the meeting invite.By the end of the meeting, we shall <fill in the blank>
To accomplish this goal, the meeting will <discuss the following>
To make it fancier, you can turn the second bullet into topics and assign a rough time block to manage time.
Be clear who is required vs. optional.
With your agenda, know why you’re inviting someone and if they are required or optional. Required means if the person was absent, the meeting would need to be rescheduled.Ask for RSVP and start on time.
Related to your company’s meeting culture, do people you work with respond to meeting invites? I’ve worked with people who never RSVP to calendar invites, who RSVP but don’t show and provide no explanation, and who attend meetings uninvited. All three cause unnecessary confusion to the meeting organizer and wastes time for other participants.I recommend publicly establishing the following norms:
If an invitee doesn’t accept, it’s the same as declining a meeting. This puts the accountability on the recipient (only appropriate for internal employees).
Start meeting on time. Don’t wait for all participants, it rewards people who join late. Furthermore, don’t make a rule of starting “5 minutes after the hour”. While it’s a good intention, it rewards the wrong behaviors because people who have back-to-back meetings will still use up that time and be late. Instead, reward punctuality.
People will leave meetings early by articulating boundaries. The alternative to “starting 5 minutes after” is to encourage people to end early by announcing publicly. Participants must inform meeting organizers they have back-to-back meetings and will be leaving early. This will subsequently force meeting organizers to plan meetings to be completed before the end of the allotted time.
Invites will inform the meeting organizer if they are inviting additional participants to explain why. This isn’t a game of “I don’t want more people to join”. However, as a meeting organizer, I do want to know who is attending and why. Set the norm that if a meeting is forwarded to someone else, the participant will inform the meeting organizer and provide a reason.
Give information so people can opt-out.
To encourage people to opt-out of meetings, provide information that satisfies their needs. For example, allow them to delegate the power of decision-making and attendance to someone else. Alternatively, tell people who are attending a meeting for the sole purpose of gathering information that you’ll be sending meeting takeaways notes after the meeting, so there’s no shame if they miss out.
During meeting:
Keep time.
Sounds obviously, but so easy to forget. Consider using a timer in the background.Moderate and move topics into the parking lot.
Tangent discussions can be insightful or lead everyone down a rabbit hole. Practice moderating using the agenda and interrupt people if the topic is too off topic by jotting it down in the notes and asking the person if they’d like to organize a different discussion on that topic.If finished, give permission to leave.
When you’ve accomplished your meeting goal, inform everyone and give them permission to leave. It can also be appropriate at this point to encourage those who have time to stay and socialized. This moves the socialization to the end of the meeting, using it as a health reward.
After meeting
Send an email summarizing the meeting.
This helps not only participants, but also can be easily forwarded to people who didn’t or couldn’t attend to catch up on information without needing to ask you. You can use Meeting Summary TemplateSet email to auto follow up
Sometimes, there are follow up actions that come from a meeting where specific individuals need to complete XYZ. A time hack I use is to write an email as a simple nudge and schedule it to send 3 - 4 days after the meeting to follow up on the action item. It removes the need for me to remember to follow up and I word it as an automated, friendly nudge reminder.
Templates
Meeting Summary Template (also read: Writing better emails, a simple guide)
Additional reading: