I have an idea how to reduce the number of meetings.

Question

I have an idea how to reduce the number of meetings.

tzimie

Old Hand

Points: 321
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September 24, 2018 at 5:15 am

#377726

This is for the big company, of course.
I suggest to distribute (monthly, for example) some amounts of "meeting-coins" for all employees. Managers get more, but the amount is limited.
Now, if someone wants to create a meeting, he "pays" for every invitee: 1 coin per 1 person invited. Meeting coins are NOT transferable and resets every month - you can't accumulate them.
It will help to reduce the number of meetings, to narrow the list of invitees (instead of spamming very wide distribution lists).
Also, based on my experience, the efficiency of a meeting is proportional to 2/N, where N in the number of participants. So it is perfect for a direct phone call (N=2, 2/2=1). meetings with N>10 are total waste of time. Of course, it dioesn't apply to the presentations.
What do you think?

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jonathan.crawford SSCertifiable Points: 6612 More actions · Answer 1

You'd be better off setting a requirement that every meeting have an agenda, minutes and required vs optional attendees, where if not all required attendees are present (or their proxy, who is empowered and able to make decisions on their behalf) then the meeting is adjourned. All employees should be empowered to report unfocused meetings to some anonymous email box, at which time the agenda/minutes need to be provided, or meeting organizer takes a hit.

Wasting "coins" on direct phone calls perpetuates the cycle, I would think, since an individual phone call can be much more productive than an unfocused meeting.

Plus, on big projects, more than 10 people need to be there listening for impact to their processes and work.

But, all that said, in reality nothing will be better unless everyone top to bottom takes accountability for being prepared, on task, and following through. So, nothing will change.

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004318 More actions · Answer 2

Heh.... It would be far easier to teach pigs to fly than it would be to train managers and other how to properly conduct and effective meeting. It's really difficult when you have people in attendance that don't think they're doing their job unless they're talking... over... and over... and over repeating the same old stuff making a 10 minute meeting take more than a hour.

--Jeff Moden

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First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

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