Sunday 22 April 2007

Meeting "outlook" could be better?

Was chatting to the wonderful Eileen Brown from Microsoft yesterday talking about how meetings go on too long.  She suggested that people just schedule for 30 min's or an hour out of habit or software? You decide.

Seth Godin hates meetings. Has some good ideas.

TIPS: I think most of the time, most meetings should be held without chairs. People standing up think more quickly and get distracted less often. And the meetings don't last as long.

All day meetings should be banned. Meetings that attempt to accomplish more than one of the tasks above should be banned.

Bonus tip: Last person to walk in the door pays $10 to the coffee fund.

Extra bonus tip: hire someone to come in and videotape a few of your standard meetings. Watch what happens.

 Worth a try methinks.

2 comments:

Rowan Manahan said...

It is said that Queen Victoria, tiring of the twitterings of the courtiers following Albert's death in 1861, instigated now rules for the Privy Council meetings:
1. All meetings must have a stated purpose. No purpose, no meeting.
2. All meetings must have an agenda, circulated and agreed in advance. No agenda, no meeting.
3. Only those people who need to be at the meeting - i.e. those who have something to contribute - will be on the invite list. No passengers.
4. All meetings will be scheduled to run for 10 minutes. If it takes longer than that to explain the issue, it probably hasn't been sufficiently worked out and does not require her Majesty's presence yet.
5. To assist in keeping to the 10-minute deadline, all meetings will be conducted standing up.

Possibly apocryphal, but I would try for at least 4 out of those 5 rules if you want to spend less time in fruitless, meandering conclaves.

Kaylee said...

Outlook which is I first listen,I don't know what's its meaning.can you tell me?