Meetings

How, when, and why do we meet?

To meet or not to meet...

Reflecting on this I'm increasingly drawn to Basecamp's communication framework which simply asks us to put meetings at the bottom of the default list, and puts writing on the top.

Here is what I'm taking away as food for thought from them right now:

• Meetings are the last resort, not the first option.

• Speaking only helps who’s in the room, writing helps everyone.

• Five people in a room for an hour isn't a one hour meeting, it's a five hour meeting.

• Internal communication based on long-form writing, rather than a verbal tradition of meetings, speaking, and chatting,

Running effective meetings

Oh, so many ways to improve! I love the idea (from ...) of a written handout for everyone to read at the outset of the meeting - dedicated time for everyone to read a hand-written memo. This sounds so superior to a presentation, to sending things and then pretending everyone made time to read it ahead of time... and it forces the 'presenter' to be really thoughtful about what they're writing down.

However, that's only applicable to one kind of meeting.

I'm currently (Jan 2020) enjoying this checklist - focused on sales meetings - as a tool for general meeting improvement. (Note there's external copyright on that document, please don't share.)