Week 3: Meetings

Meetings

Time is money. We all know it. And yet the vast majority of organisations suffer from time waste when people sit in a meeting and don’t actually get any value. That is time from each of their days that they have lost. Eliminating this waste or even minimising it could save some companies millions.

As a bonus – not wasting your time waiting for meetings to start or being bored during them, will leave you and your team much happier!

Meetings are necessary. Face to face communication is proven to be vastly more effective than any other form of communication. We need to understand how to make meetings more productive.

Luckily – with just a few tips – you can do this as a Scrum Master. What you will notice is that if you implement these tips, other people will start changing their behaviour too.

TIPS

• Always prepare for a meeting.
• Always have a purpose for the meeting and an intended outcome.
• If attendees need to bring or prepare something, tell them in advance.
• Always start meetings on time and close the door.
• Latecomers are welcome, but must open the door. Don’t catch them up on what has been discussed, they will learn to be on time if they don’t want to miss anything.
• Always end meetings on time. If the desired outcome has not been achieved then have a discussion as to when to address this before the end of the meeting
• Plan meetings to end at 5 minutes to the hour (e.g. 9:55am) to allow participants time to get to their next meeting on time.
• Ensure that you facilitate the meeting and keep it on topic.
• Don’t multitask in meetings by checking your phone, tablet or laptop. Pay attention to the person talking, and take notes on paper. Taking notes on a laptop can make people think you are checking email, even if you aren’t.
• If the desired outcome is achieved before the end of the meeting, end the meeting early.

The above tips allow people to have FOCUS. They demands RESPECT and require COMMITMENT, COURAGE and OPENNESS. Do these sound familiar?