Do you know it? The project starts and needs to be well planned.Project Managers and everyone involved in management need a sense of control. It all starts in a hurry to make it on time and not waste time, and at the same time managers begin to carefully plan their work for the next few months. Of course, in this planning, according to the agile approach, everyone who is producing the product is involved, so endless planning meetings begin.
You already know what happens next:
- there are a lot of meetings in the first Sprint because you have to plan, so nothing meaningful is built
- in the next sprint, we try to make up work to be on track, but it is obvious that it won’t succeed, so it gets nervous what results in a lot of meetings
- in the following Sprint, delays from previous sprints have to be replanned so that the schedules are in line with the possibilities, so we meet instead of creating a product
… and so on.
As a result, we have a lot of management, a lot of control, a lot of meetings, constant changes and everyone thinks it’s Agile 😉
Of course, the scenario presented above is a funny description of an extreme situation, but in real life one thing remains constant: the need to have control. In the title, I promised to write how to end the overload of meetings and it does not only apply to development, but to all kinds of work. The problem of pointless, endless meetings affects many organizations, and the bigger an organization is, the greater the chance of occurrence are.
Common causes of bad meetings:
- A meeting is easier than thinking — often it is organized by the supervisor for his subordinates, because it is much easier to call a meeting than to do work on your own. At such a meeting, the phrase “We have a problem X and I would like to know your opinion on this topic” appears, and translated from the corporate language it means “I have a problem X and as your supervisor I expect you to solve it for me”. He hides his ignorance or laziness as a consultation, where it’s really about someone doing the work for him.
- An unprepared meeting is a meeting where the input for the discussion is presented at the meeting, or worse, not presented at all. In this case the topic is not explored by anyone except the organizer. It results with a long introduction, after which the participants are just starting to form their minds. The meeting takes too long.
- The meeting has no effect. There are no results, because nobody cares about it. The point is just to highlight the problem. The organizer can safely say later “Didn’t I tell you?” After such a meeting, there are no effects, no findings and no result.
- A lot of people invited = important meeting. The more senseless people invited, the more important the meeting is). Participants bring no value to the meeting, nor do they take anything out of it — their presence is unnecessary. As a result, the attitude towards the work starts to be negative. In addition, a large number of people at the meeting causes lower involvement and more difficulty to determine the effect of the meeting.
Meeting policy as a solution to this problem is nothing innovative. Unfortunately hardly anyone uses it to solve the problem quickly and effectively. Sometimes it is even present, but due to lack of core problem understanding, it is badly implemented and, as a result, does not solve problems, but distorts the work environment instead.
In my opinion, the minimum set of information in the meeting invitation should include:
- title that should explain the topic of the meeting. The untitled meeting is indefinite or possibly has too many unrelated goals
- goal that is described as a business problem to be solved. If the purpose of the meeting cannot be determined, no effect will probably arise from it
- information about the problem, data and analysis needed to prepare for the meeting. If the information is not collected in a consistent form and has not been pre-analyzed, it probably needs to be done at the meeting. In addition, different people may use different knowledge, which additionally makes it necessary to discuss the basics at the meeting. The attached data allows people to prepare for the meeting.
- agenda, if more than one aspect is discussed. If there is more than one topic at the meeting, they should be listed in order in order to control the course of the meeting and not to run out of time for any of the topics announced.
- expected outcome of the meeting allows you to do follow-up. After the meeting, the result should be created. If it is impossible to reach them, design the path to be followed with new data and information (another meeting) or transferring the problem to another group (escalation)
- invited people are only those who can bring us closer to the goal
… because inviting other people is waste.
The role of the meeting organizer himself is also important. His duty, apart from the correct preparation of the meeting, is also to conduct it. To do so:
- he gives an introduction — quickly introduces the topic, presents the data and clearly states the goal to be achieved
- he watches over the agenda and purpose of the meeting to avoid entering into unplanned discussion
- he lists problems, comments, conclusions and actions to be taken
- he assures that the voices of all are heard. If we don’t listen to them, why have we invited them?
- he makes sure that the result of the meeting is created, which also becomes a follow-up after the meeting.
After the meeting, the organizer makes sure that all participants get a follow-up. If the meeting does not have a summary, its value is considered to be zero.
The effects that are achieved by introducing such rules are almost immediate, but the most interesting thing is that the transparency of the entire organization is also growing rapidly. Waste is revealed, spots that require improvement of competences are revealed, but most of all, everyone begins to communicate more efficiently and effectively.
Meeting policy will be established.