Meetings

Meeting timeline

Start of the meeting

• Give at least 30m notice, in addition to any extra time people might need to gather information
• Everything on the table, no surprises
• Don’t start just before your lunch or before the end of the business day when people will be leaving
• Have an agenda with stated goals and a scheduled end time
• If you’re going to use the projector or teleconferencing, come in 5m earlier than start time so you don’t bungle the first critical minutes

During the meeting

• Don’t marry your ideas - be open to suitable alternatives
• Keep a list of actionable items
• Be objective
• When it seems that a conversation is going into technical details best handled outside of the meeting, say so, try to get back to the agenda

End of the meeting

• At scheduled endtime, decide if you need to continue. Let people who need to leave go, and maybe take a 5 minute breather to clear your head. Set a new end time.
• Do a quick overview of the action items, confirm you’ve hit all agenda points.

Meetings, Bloody Meetings

1. plan - be precise about the objectives and why you need the meeting
2. inform - what people need to bring to the meeting
3. prepare - the logical sequence of items (prioritizing the important)
4. structure and control - present evidence first, then discuss without jumping around
5. summarize and record - write down the who/what of action items, decisions