How to run fast WFH meetings
Slow meetings are long meetings, which means less code, which means slower coding. And with everybody working from home, meetings can be even slower.
We’re about coding fast, so we must learn how to run fast meetings. In this post, we’ll go through different meeting archetypes and explain how to run the meeting as fast as possible so we can get back to coding.
I have an announcement: Broadcast
If you can start off your meeting with, I have an annoucement, you’re running a broadcast meeting.
A “broadcast” meeting is one where a single person broadcasts information to lots of people.
Skipping: Just send an email
You can replace this meeting with an email unless the information requires emotional sensitivity. Giving someone a raise or shuttering a project should be done over zoom, not email. Everything else, email works great.
Write the agenda, but don’t share it
Write an agenda to help organize your thoughts and know what to include and what not to. This prevents rambling and other timewasters. However, since the meeting is emotionally sensitive, don’t share the agenda with others.
Save questions for after the meeting
Preface the meeting by saying questions will be after the end. Don’t take questions during the meeting. People have code to write and we don’t want them sitting in the meeting listening to questions instead of writing code. If a question is good, share it via email.
What’d you get done: StatusUpdate
If the purpose of your meeting is to ask people what they did, you’re running a status update meeting. The purpose of the meeting is for people to share what they did.
Skipping: Fill out a google doc
The fastest way to host this meeting is to not. Although standups are popular in the “agile”, “scrum” world, they’re a waste of time as a status update (although they help with team bonding).
Instead, go fast and use a google doc. Ask everybody to fill out what they did in a google doc. Then, if you or anyone else has questions on what’s going on, follow up with them individually. As an added plus, you now have standup notes!
Skipping: JIRA
If your meeting consists of going one by one and updating JIRA, don’t. I’ve sat in meetings where 10 of us sat in a room where the boss went one by one and asked us to update JIRA. Complete waste of time, especially over zoom. Instead, delegate updating JIRA to your reports on their own time and if you have questions about their status, follow up with them individually over email. If used, JIRA serves as the source of truth for progress and make sure your reports understand this and update it.
Agenda
A statusupdate meeting, should it be held in person does not need an explicit agenda because the agenda is implicit: share the updates. Anything that’s not sharing an update should be tabled for after the meeting.
No questions
If you must have a status update meeting in person, don’t let people ask questions. Questions take time and are not valuable to anybody but the questioner and answerer. However, encourage people to ask eachother questions after the meeting is over.
Hey, let’s sync: Alignment
If you could summarize your meeting as syncing with someone, you’re running an alignment meeting. The purpose of an alignment meeting is to get everyone in the meeting on the same page.
Skipping: documents
Alignment meetings are hard to skip, but there one trick is: documents.
If somone publishes documents about his work, project, API, or whatever, then anybody working with that person can read the documentation. This pushes problems into a small corner. Instead of meeting with the author to understand what he’s doing, alignment meetings are to deal with questions about what he’s doing. This is similar to status updates. If reports document their work via google docs or JIRA, then they don’t need to meet with you unless what they’re doing is problematic.
Agenda
The agenda for an alignment meeting should be written and shared. This allows for both parties to think about the issues and communicate them more clearly and quickly. Agendaless alignment meetings meander more and participants are less likely to be prepared.
Alignment doesn’t scale
Alignment requires lots and lots of communication. This is why open office plans won out over cubicles. They enabled more communication which enables more alignment.
However, communication between 2 people at a time is significantly faster than 3 at a time and once you get 4 people in a room, human social dynamics hijack any hopes of communication unless it’s a broadcast. As alignment speed is determined by communication speed, it’s most effective when done with only two people. If you need to align a larger group try every way you can to restructure the group so it doesn’t need to be aligned to be effective. Delegate, split up tasks, do whatever it takes because aligning a large group is incredibly slow.
IRL
Alignment meetings should be done in person as much as possible even if its six feet apart, mask on, outdoors in a park. Again this is feasible with 2 people, but not any more. Video and phone just don’t communicate as much information as in person. Less communication means the meeting takes longer.
Let’s play: bonding
If you need your team to bond, don’t schedule a zoom bonding meeting. Definitely don’t ask everybody to share 2 truths and a lie. That’s just sad. Normally, I’d recommend using food and alcohol and let human brains work their magic, but corona’s made that impossible.
Instead, use the two ways programmers have been bonding on the internet for decades: video games and chat rooms (especially chat rooms about video games). Encourage people to play and socialize. Ensure they can make their own chat rooms on slack. If a paid game is popular, then let them expense the game. Their improved collaboration will be well worth the $50 copy of the game.
Skipping
If programmers play on their own time, no need to schedule a bonding meeting.
Agenda
If you do host a social event, have a weak agenda. Give people as much space to socialize as they can, they’re wired for it.
Work meetings
Work meetings are meetings that are held so people do work at that time. These are rare in the software world, but I’ve had them. If the work doesn’t get done without these meetings, there are serious motivational or visibility issues.
Skipping
Address the deeper problems and your team will not only be happier and more productive, but these meetings will be obsolete.
Agenda
These meetings are to achieve a task and nothing else. Keep people focused, but give them some room to bond since that will happen naturally.
Weekly 1:1 with the boss
A scheduled weekly 1:1 meeting with a boss serves two purposes:
The boss signals his availability to his reports. This helps his reports trust him.
The report feels comfortable asking to receive guidance from his boss.
1:1s work better in person, but zoom works too.
Skipping
To maximize the emotional benefit, this meeting must be scheduled and should never be canceled. Even if you both enter the room, the report says I have no questions, and the meeting ends then and there, don’t cancel it.
Report led agenda
1:1s are for the report, so the report should set the meeting agenda. This also lets them know you trust them and you want to empower them. If the report has trouble setting an agenda, coach them, don’t do it for them.
Conclusion
As we’ve seen a lot of meetings can be made faster by not existing and by setting agendas to keep the meeting focused. We’ve cut out questions and for communication heavy meetings like alignment, we keep them small.
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