Meetings drag on for much longer than necessary.
Who is adding value in these meetings? Nobody. Who is gaining value from them? Nobody. Well… maybe our client manager. They now have the ability to pass on what we’re working on, timescales and current progress, but how is this any different to filling out what we’ve done that day in a single, small message - which we do as well, by the way.
Funnily enough, all of our trials make an app called Today I Have. A great, simple concept, but we don’t even use it. Maybe we should.
We don’t need to be included in these meetings, but Alice might benefit from knowing what Ben is working on.
Transparency, not inclusion.
I used to be an advocate of getting many people involved in decisions. I wanted to be involved in them. Anyone who might have an input, anyone who might need to know about a particular decision. I still think this is the case, but this doesn’t need to be everyone - perhaps this needs to be a representative. It’s stupid to not involved people who might have prior knowledge, but it’s stupid to involve 10 people when 1 will do - a single 1 hour meeting with 10 people is 10 hours of billable time. Likewise, it’s stupid to involved 0 people that might have knowledge, when 1 could save valuable time and steer the ship in the right direction.
Resources:
https://rework.fm/out-in-the-open/
https://theascent.pub/28-of-the-most-annoying-things-about-meetings-and-how-to-make-meetings-meaty-f79a70d77f2d