Reduce meeting times by one third
September 5, 2008
According to a recent study conducted by The University of Missouri there is a way to make your meetings shorter without impacting on the quality of the decisions.
The answer?
Take the chairs away. The researchers compared the results from 111 meetings around a specific problem and found that the seated meetings lasted 34% longer. What’s more there was no difference in the decision making outcomes of the group.
In fact, among the standing meeting participants they expressed a greater satisfaction with their meetings.
This study can be found at:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E1D6103BF931A15755C0A96F958260
Some of the reasons that a stand up meeting is shorter might be:
- The sheer novelty of doing this
- You do not become too comfortable
- There is some physical motivation to quicken the meeting
- And also according to the Speed Thinking principles a better decision is often made quickly anyway.
Imagine the possibility of freeing up one third of your time. It has to be worth a try!
Ken Hudson
Six tips for faster, better meetings
July 24, 2008
People are always complaining about meetings — either their too long or unproductive and when time is short this is very frustrating. So what to do about it?
These are my top tips using a Speed Thinking perspective:
1. Send the agenda out a few days before the meeting with one problem or decision highlighted. Then ask participants to bring along nine different possibilities (ask them to speed think it). If they do not have any thoughts then suggest that they do not come. Using this principle, in the first few minutes, if you have say ten people you will have 90 possibilities.
2. Decide which items on the agenda are strategic or day-to-day. Change the agenda to place all the day to day decisions up front. Then Speed Thinking these. In ten minutes the group will have made five decisions then move on to the strategic decisions. The group will have made some progress and participants will feel better as they tackle the bigger issues.
3. However long your meetings are at the moment –half the time. According to Parkinson’s Law –work expands to fill the time available. It is the same with meetings. Meetings expand to the time you have allocated. Therefore it is better to have half the time as participants will have to think faster, they become more focused, make better decisions and they remain more energized. It is better to have shorter, more regular meetings than the three-four hour marathon.
4. The extension of Parkinson’s Law is
5. Have formal gut-feel time in every meeting. This is a formal, dedicated time in every meeting to allow people to use their intuition — particularly after the group has made a decision. Participants are encouraged to express what their ‘gut-feel’ is telling them e.g. ‘i know the number don’t add up but it still feels like their is an opportunity here.’ Giving participants the freedom of using their intuition is valuable because nearly every decision is informed by our emotions and we know from research that our intuition works at a lightning speed –way ahead of our rational mind. This means that our intuition might just stumble on a breakthrough that is not obvious to the rational, logical mind.
6. Allow everyone to create ideas or solve a problem at once. One of the barriers to meetings is the idea that we must listen to everyone else. This is polite and civil but slows down every meeting which means that a ideas are lost because of this slowing down effect. Much better to give everyone a sticky note pad so that when they have an idea they can write it down immediately and put it on the wall regardless of who is speaking.
. Ideally this is when you need a facilitator that is trained in Speed Thinking Principles.
Give these suggestions a go and send me a note on how it went
Ken Hudson
The Stand-Up Meeting
July 8, 2008
I recently met with Brett Jackson, VP of a fast-growing, Software Development company called Allassian. They have been using a concept called The ‘Stand Up’ Meeting throughout their company and in particular the engineers. I found this a fascinating concept because meetings for too long have been the bane of everyone’s existence and have slowed down progress (or so it seems).
The features of the Stand Up meeting include:
- Typically it is held in the morning around 10.00am. The meeting starts on time there is no waiting for stragglers.
- The aim is usually to obtain an update on a project.
- People are asked at random (by throwing them a football) to comment on what they did yesterday, what they were planning to do today and what might hinder them from achieving this (in this way these barriers are articulated and perhaps someone can help). The ball keeps everyone focused, listening and alert because you never know when it may be your turn.
- The stand up approach ensures that people do not get too comfortable and the business spends less time in unproductive meetings and more time creating value for customers etc.
- Any substantial discussions are then taken off-line (outside the meeting)
- Anyone can attend or observe a meeting (usually the project meeting is 10-12 people).
- Music is played at the start of the session to signify that the meeting is about to commence (different people can choose which music to play).
- Only one person talks at a time (the person with the ball). Usually they have a minute or so to talk.
- There is no leader dominating the meeting.
The benefits of the ‘Stand Up’ Meeting are many. People see the value in meetings because they can find out what is going on and perhaps someone can help them if they need help. Also as the meeting is quick, tight and focused they do not mind going as it frees them up to get on with their work.
It does require (paradoxically) more discipline and preparation by all concerned. Faster meetings can be better ones only if people are ready to go.
Does anyone else have a stand up meeting?
Cheers ken