Meeting Cheating

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Meeting Cheating

Phil Factor

SSC-Insane

Points: 20244
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June 4, 2016 at 11:12 am

#311043

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Meeting Cheating
Best wishes,
Phil Factor

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sean redmond SSCertifiable Points: 5824 More actions · Answer 1

For anyone who likes this sort of deviousness, then the English comedy series 'Yes Minister!' and 'Yes, Prime Minister' are well worth watching.

There may even be episodes up on YouTube.

shoestringdba SSCertifiable Points: 6226 More actions · Answer 2

Sean Redmond (6/5/2016)
For anyone who likes this sort of deviousness, then the English comedy series 'Yes Minister!' and 'Yes, Prime Minister' are well worth watching.
There may even be episodes up on YouTube.

Some PBS channels here in the US still run it, and yes, it is well worth watching.

____________
Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.

jasona.work SSC Guru Points: 50117 More actions · Answer 3

Time to run for a US Gov seat (maybe House of Reps,) get on a couple interesting committees and roll this method out to getting things done...

😀

Wayne West SSC-Insane Points: 22586 More actions · Answer 4

In some ways I am an extremely punctual person. While doing film programs (back when it was 16mm film) for science fiction conventions, I committed the blasphemy of all of the films starting at the posted time. I padded the end of the first film with short features and cartoons to give the projectionist time to load the first reel of the second film. We were busy between films, but we were always on time.

I spent time as the president of my home owner's association, and the meetings started on-time and rarely ran longer much longer than an hour. The key was to stick to the agenda and to limit input from the audience: this was a Board meeting, not a general member meeting. We had a large Serbian population in our complex, and this one guy in particular who was an elder in their group and religion, could drone on and on and wander off topic. I'd cut him off after he finished his initial point on the topic being discussed and tell him that we need to move on. It was such a refreshing change of pace from the 2-3 hour meetings that we used to have.

In IT, when I run project meetings, I send out a document addressing the specific points that we'll be discussing and a summary of major changes to the system that were brought up at the previous meeting and accomplished. Rarely do these meetings go over an hour, and I always received compliments on running meetings efficiently.

While I appreciate the low-cunning of the council meetings that Phil was a part of, IT is a different realm where trying to sneak something in under the radar is disingenuous and can be dangerous. I think the best way to keep a meeting moving is to provide everyone an agenda in advance and not allow the meeting to be unstructured and wander around aimlessly. Not having structure strikes me as exciting as those training sessions that we've all attended where the presenter displays highly dense PowerPoint slides and then reads the slides to you. I'd like to be able to program my phone to give me an electrical shock during those to keep me attentive.

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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

Phil Factor SSC-Insane Points: 20244 More actions · Answer 5

Yeah. Whenever I am in a position where I can control how meetings are conducted the rules are ...

No meeting should ever take more than an hour, and its length must be determined and published beforehand
Nobody should be allowed to speak for more than three minutes at a time.
The meeting should have an itemised agenda
All documents to be discussed or produced should be ‘discovered’ (i.e. shown or copied to all attendees) in good time before the meeting
No decision can be reached by the meeting on any item that is not in the agenda.
The meeting must have a predetermined quorum A meeting must always have a Chairman (man in the sense of human, girls)
The Chairman is responsible for the good conduct of the meeting
For the course of the meeting the Chairman represents the organisation and has the authority and respect of that organisation.
All actions and decisions of meetings must be minuted, and previous minutes must be explicitly approved.

Best wishes,
Phil Factor

David.Poole SSC Guru Points: 76001 More actions · Answer 6

One of my managers always volunteered to keep the minutes, that way his points were always recorded and inevitably signed off.

There's clearly an art to running a meeting and there's more to being a chairman than meets the eye. You have to be a strong character to stop the particularly those in senior positions

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Eric M Russell SSC Guru Points: 125561 More actions · Answer 7

David.Poole (6/6/2016)
One of my managers always volunteered to keep the minutes, that way his points were always recorded and inevitably signed off.
There's clearly an art to running a meeting and there's more to being a chairman than meets the eye. You have to be a strong character to stop the particularly those in senior positions

I hate meetings where the important architectural decisions have already been made behind closed doors and all the only reason they put the development or DBA team on the invite list just to go through the motions. That type of management (quite rightfully) gets no respect.

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

call.copse SSCoach Points: 18052 More actions · Answer 8

Nice read Phil, a clear and humourous expression of the dangers of meetings. Next time I'm nodding off as some incompetent drones on, I'll be thinking - what are they trying to get past me here?

😉

David.Poole SSC Guru Points: 76001 More actions · Answer 9

Eric M Russell (6/6/2016)
I hate meetings where the important architectural decisions have already been made behind closed doors and all the only reason they put the development or DBA team on the invite list just to go through the motions. That type of management (quite rightfully) gets no respect.

Fortunately in this case it was along the lines of Phil's article.

Early on in my career I had a boss who said that an employee doesn't become valuable for 18-24 months as they don't know the business. The time scales I am not sure about but I agree with the general gist of his argument.

I find I have a much kinder view of outsourcing companies now than I did when I was a developer. An outsourcing company can only be as good as the people who communicate the requirements and fulfil dependencies that the outsourcing company needs to fulfil their obligation. I am not convinced that many people realise that staff at the bottom of the pecking order have to use their knowledge and experience of the organisation to fill in some rather large gaps in requirements. I have seen too many occasions where senior people have expressed disappointment in the quality of their staff without realising that

a) The staff are well aware of the senior opinion

b) The staff are actually no better or worse than any others on the market place

c) There is a failure to communicate the requirements and priorities

d) The requirements and priorities are diktats without regard for constraints or recognition that the constraints need addressing.

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