I blogged about meetings a few weeks ago, and provided some tips on how to approach them realistically. Let's face it, no one likes meetings.
Since I published that blog, I have been pondering an even bigger question. Why should we even have meetings? I'd say that very few meetings are necessary. Most of them could be easily replaced by collaboration tools, and accountability. Meetings are happening because people have always went to meetings. It's like sharing the pain. "When I was coming up, we had meetings! We'd all gather in a conference room, and talk. And then we'd talk some more!" It's a good thing smoking is banned.
There are some meetings that are highly valuable, and these are working meetings, where a deliverable is produced in the meeting. These generally focus on establishing or changing processes, or on planning. This needs to be done with everyone present.
Most meetings are focused on leveling information across functions. This comes in the form of each person providing a brief (when we're lucky) update on what they are working on. Previous action items are updated, and new ones added. The meeting is really focused on making sure that stuff gets done, which is really just accountability. If you have a meeting coming up, and you were supposed to have something done for it, the peer pressure of showing up at the meeting with empty hands will probably motivate you to get the stuff done. Sharing information is a helpful part of the meeting also, it can validate the 120 e-mails we received since the last meeting. Attendees sit and think - yup, Bob got that done, it was in one of the 120 e-mails we had since the meeting last week.
If our meetings are primarily focused on sharing information and tracking action items, these can easily be managed using one of the many collaboration tools. Action items become assigned tasks, and "blah blah" updates become Wikis.
How much time do you spend in meetings that could have been eliminated by a few e-mails, a Wiki, or an task tracking tool? Would you still do your work if you didn't have a meeting to remind you to do it? Are meetings things of the past?
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Since I published that blog, I have been pondering an even bigger question. Why should we even have meetings? I'd say that very few meetings are necessary. Most of them could be easily replaced by collaboration tools, and accountability. Meetings are happening because people have always went to meetings. It's like sharing the pain. "When I was coming up, we had meetings! We'd all gather in a conference room, and talk. And then we'd talk some more!" It's a good thing smoking is banned.
There are some meetings that are highly valuable, and these are working meetings, where a deliverable is produced in the meeting. These generally focus on establishing or changing processes, or on planning. This needs to be done with everyone present.
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| Empty conference rooms rock |
If our meetings are primarily focused on sharing information and tracking action items, these can easily be managed using one of the many collaboration tools. Action items become assigned tasks, and "blah blah" updates become Wikis.
How much time do you spend in meetings that could have been eliminated by a few e-mails, a Wiki, or an task tracking tool? Would you still do your work if you didn't have a meeting to remind you to do it? Are meetings things of the past?
If you enjoyed this blog, please share this it using the social media buttons below.
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