#6: Six types of (virtual) team meetings
“I’m spending too much time in meetings” or “I don’t have enough time to get my work done because of all the meetings”. These are probably quotes which we all have heard at some point in our careers. 11 million meetings every day in the US workplace alone. 35% of the time of middle managers and up to 50% of the time of executives is spent in meetings, making it comprehensible why folks feel like being in meetings all day.
Some time ago I wrote about five ways to make meetings more productive. This blogpost will be about different types of meetings for which you can also use those practices mentioned in the blogpost before. We all experience different types of meetings in our careers and one thing I learned about scheduling a meeting is making sure that the participants know what they sign-up to when accepting the meeting invite. Our time is precious and no one likes the feeling of sitting in a meeting thinking “this meeting definitely should have been a message”. Here are six different ways to meet your team (virtually):
Stand-Ups: Stand-ups are usually no longer than 15 minutes and are usually held at the same time every day. The purpose of a stand-up is to give a brief update to your team. It’s important to choose the right stand-up cadence, for example instead of meeting on a daily basis you can host your stand-ups Monday to Thursday, skipping Fridays. Furthermore, it’s also essential to track the time so that everyone in the stand-up has the opportunity to speak, usually it’s no more than one minute per person. Conversations which might take longer can be paused and taken offline to align after the stand-up. Most stand-ups consist of these three questions:
What have you completed since the last meeting?
What do you plan to complete by the next meeting?
What is getting in your way?
Walking Meetings: Especially when working remotely, it’s easy to forget to take breaks or to go outside for some fresh air. In an office environment you switch meeting rooms, go for lunch or grab a coffee but working from home means also shorter distances to the fridge or coffee machine. Walking meetings can be used when you don’t have to take a lot of notes, just take your phone and go outside. Walk the talk.
Braintrust Meetings: During Pixar’s famous Braintrust, folks meet regularly to discuss and critique the concept of a new movie. Pixar’s Braintrust is based on candor. Only in an environment in which candor is possible, constructive feedback can be successful. Further, different views allow you to challenge your own thoughts and perspectives. Ed Cadmull, co-founder of Pixar is saying in his book Creativity Inc. that in the beginning every Pixar movie sucks, only through iterations and constant feedback from peers the movie goes from “suck to not-suck”. What makes this meeting so successful is that everyone in the room is aiming to make the discussed movie more successful and personal agendas are set-aside.
Retro Sessions: Retrospectives should be held on a regular basis to take the time to stop and reflect. Looking back is necessary to learn from the past and to apply these learnings moving forward. You don’t always need a half day or longer session for a retro, it can be as quick as a 30 min slot in your calendar, asking these three questions:
What worked?
Where did we get stuck?
What can we do differently next time?
Meeting Split: Being in a workshop for a full day can be exhausting. Being in a workshop for a full day when working from home can be even more exhausting. Without walking around the room or face-to-face conversations this day can become very long. A practice which I found helpful during the past months is dividing the time spent in a longer meeting to several days. So instead of meeting for nine hours straight, let’s meet on three consecutive days for three hours each or any other cadence that might be helpful for your workshop.
Pomodoro Meetings: The famous Pomodoro Technique helps you to better focus on a task to get your work done. It’s a step-by-step process:
Choose the task you would like to work on
Set a timer for 25 minutes
Work until the time is up
Take a five minute break
This technique can also be used as a team. Working pomodoro-style with your team helps you to get quick feedback from your mates without interrupting them. First, schedule the virtual pomodoro meeting with your team. Discuss what work has to be done. Then, work individually for 25 minutes but stay in the call. Afterwards, check-in with each other on any dependencies, questions or blockers. Take a break. Then set the next timer. It is encouraged to take a longer break after four pomodoros. You might have already wondered why pomodoro? The inventor of this technique, Francesco Cirillo, used a pomodoro (tomato) shaped kitchen timer at first. Speaking of timer, here’s also a link to a pomodoro timer.
Let’s spend the time in meetings more productive and fun. I’m looking forward to hearing from your favorite practices when it comes to meeting types, drop me a line.