Meetings can actually be great

Meetings can be an effective tool for focused discussions, decision making, synchronization and more, but as the company gets bigger, it’s hard to keep the same level of effectiveness.

When this happens, instead of moving faster due to meetings, they end up slowing things down, decisions gradually take more time and the feeling of a “slow corporate” kicks in. Before you know it you can’t do anything without countless mediocre meetings. Moreover, meetings start to create a false sense of movement (“We have meeting to promote this topic next week, so we’re good”).

Did you ever feel that you waste time in ineffective meetings, not managing to get “real” work done until after hours, or that you lose control over your own calendar (having a schedule driven day, rather than an impact driven one)?

It might be even just that you have many meetings that do not drive actual progress, these tips are for you.

Making your meetings more effective

Prepare in advance:

1. Set clear agenda and goals
   Setting an agenda and goals will make everyone in the meeting more proactive in trying to achieve them within the allocated time frame. It also allows to “measure” the meeting’s quality and tell if it was good or not by simply asking, did we achieve our goals?
2. Allow pre-processing
   Share all the information you have in advance with the meeting invitees. It will allow them to read it in advance and come more prepared. In some cases, it will even allow others to suggest a different agenda or goals, make sure they’re the most relevant people to the topic (or maybe that they need to have someone else instead), etc, thus making the meeting much more effective. It also makes it legitimate to have a higher pace in the meeting, relying on the context you’ve provided (if someone hasn’t prepared, he doesn’t have the right to slow everyone else down).

Be minded about the audience:

1. Shorter guest list means a deeper level of discussion
   Meeting effectiveness usually drops with every person that joins it, regardless to who they are. Keeping the invitees list short and concise, can help keep a high common denominator and make the meeting much more effective. It’s also easier to have a positive ROI for a meeting of a small group of people rather than a large one (a meeting of 1hr. of 15 people actually worths 2 full work days of a single person).
2. The more invitees → more investment in the quality of the meeting
   Sometimes it’s right to have meetings with a large invitees list, it just means that every minute costs more, a lot more. As we get bigger and some of the meetings have dozens of people attending, it’s ok (and actually a must) to invest much more in preparation and making sure the meeting is spot on. For instance, when we were 40 in the company, we barely prepared for company meetings, but now at 400, it would be expected that the meeting preparation will take time to make sure it’s in high quality to justify ~2 months work days worth (400 hours / 8 net hours a day = 50 work days).

Practices that can save you a great deal of time and make your work-days more fun:

1. Make meetings shorter by default
   Meetings will usually take the time you allocate for them in the calendar. Shorter default will make everyone more focused and will require stronger justification for an hour long meetings. We changed our default to be 30 minutes instead of 1 hour and actually got even better results, as it made the conversation more focused and kept everyone more engaged throughout the meeting.
2. Back to back meetings are the devil
   People can’t just teleport — both physically and mentally. You should allow people to “take a breath” between meetings (and to arrive on time for their next meeting). Practically, it’s better to use 25 min. / 50 min. slots instead of 30 min. / 60 min.
   It’s also better to have a policy of starting meetings at xx:00 or xx:30. This way, you won’t cause your colleagues to have a fragments schedule, with many non-effective gaps in it.
3. Group meetings to have less context switches, create blocks of uninterrupted work
   Instead of having the meetings spread around your day, making you “waste” the time between them, try to group them together and leave meeting-less work block. You can also try and make less context switches by scheduling meeting just before lunch or first thing in the morning/last thing at the afternoon so you’ll have inherent break adjacent to it.
   In our case we even had a meeting-less Tuesday, that allowed everyone who is a builder in the company to have a full day without any meeting. From our experience it was great, though it was hard to maintain it over time.
4. Include a room (physical or virtual) in the meeting description
   We’ve all been there, looking for that free room or starting to get bombarded with “Please add me to the meeting” messages in multiple communication channels, while struggling to send the Zoom link. All of this happens, when the meeting should have already started. Same goes for long walks with interviewers, just to find an empty room. There is a cure — just make sure to book a room.
5. Make sure logistics works, in advance
   As a meeting facilitator, make sure you can connect to the screen, that you have Wifi, that recording works (with sound) and generally, that everything is ready, before the meeting starts. This will save countless of lost minutes where a bunch of 10 people try to give IT tips about how to make the display scale :).
   And yes, meetings should have a facilitator, a person that is accountable for the meeting’s quality and effectiveness (this will also spare some confused mutual looks and awkward silences that happen sometimes when there’s none).
6. Start on time, end on time, consistently
   Meetings that start late waste the time for the people that value it most — the ones who got there on time. It also makes you lose precious time from whatever you planned for the meeting itself.
   Ending a meeting on time is also crucial, it puts more weight on the meeting facilitator, forcing him to stay focused and in the right pace. It also allows successive meetings to start on time.
   Making it a reality is hard at first, but you must start and end on time consistently to make it work (yes, this means no exceptions).

In some cases, meetings can be replaced by a more effective method

1. Be accessible, have “office hours” where people can just drop by
   Sometimes you need just a small 2 minutes talk with someone, but he’s just so busy that the only way to get his attention is to have a meeting. A good sign for that is that suddenly you have in your calendar meetings like: “quick sync”, “ultra fast update”, etc — 30 minutes in the calendar each.
   Having free slots in your calendar, where you just sit by your desk and people can approach you can make these meetings unnecessary, saving lots of time and making everything more fun.
2. Don’t schedule a meeting to do the actual work
   Most of the work should be done before (and/or after) the meeting. Meetings that are scheduled to do the actual work are usually not effective in nature. They usually end with a statement like: “We need to take it offline and meet again once we’ll have the information”. This is not a good sign. This can get aggravated when the topic in line is something that is still ambiguous and not well defined (for example, kicking off a massive project). Rather, ask invitees what they need to prepare in advance in order to make the meeting more about taking decisions together and quality discussions, rather than stating the obvious.
3. There are other ways of inclusion but inviting everyone
   Inclusion is key for us at monday.com — this is why you often feel the urge to invite many people. While this is a good thing, meetings are extremely time consuming. A written summary for instance, is a great alternative for sharing the information without forcing everyone to attend.
4. Just say (respectfully) no
   It’s ok to say no to meetings. It’s even important. In some cases, you’re invited out of courtesy, in others, just to keep you in sync. Regardless of the reason, if you feel that your attendance won’t have a good ROI or that a meeting is just not what’s needed to get things done, say no. In such cases, you should communicate it in a clear way and find other ways to meet the goals of the original meeting. This principle also applies to cases where you’re interested in topics that are outside your “core” — it’s encouraged to keep an open mind and attend them, as long it doesn’t affect badly on your ability to do your core.
5. Proactively review your calendar, with emphasis on recurring meetings
   Every once in a while, review your calendar — it can be at the beginning of each week, or once in a while (depending how it hurts you). Go over your meetings, see that they are needed, that you know what the goal is and that you’re prepared. It’s ok to ask for more details or ask for a reschedule if you’re not ready or if the timing makes your day not optimal (for instance, a meeting in a different city in the middle of the day). It’s even ok to decline (with a good communication, not as a one-sided action). Also, pay special attention to recurring meetings, are they still needed? do you need them that often?
   Being proactive about the quality of the meetings you have, can save you hours of net work.

The “easiest” solution is to schedule a meeting. While meetings can be great, it can’t replace the actual work.We are all responsible for respecting our time and use meetings wisely. Doing so will keep our culture of Speed and “Just do it” in tact and will make everyone’s work more fun and fulfilling.