How to Spot and Prevent Useless Meetings

Create your own agenda for once

From Dilbert’s library

We all have experienced this. A painful and draining meeting that at the end didn’t solve the problem and leaves you with a feeling of wasted time.

The argument is often to favor collaboration but, what does this mean? Is having meetings the only way to collaborate? As a result, you end up having more meetings than you should. Meetings are just one way to collaborate.

Most of the advice I found on this topic was on how to run effective meetings. However, I couldn’t find much on how to spot useless meetings and prevent them from happening in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong, meetings (when done right) can be very powerful and productive. But not all of them are equal. As Andy Grove mentions in High Output Management, there are at least two types of meetings — the process-oriented meetings and the mission-oriented meetings. It’s about the second type of meeting that I’m talking about.

The real sign of malorganization is when people spend more than 25 percent of their time in ad hoc mission-oriented. — Andy Groove

As a Product Manager, I try to find a healthy balance. If I’m not careful, my agenda ends up being everyone’s else agenda.

When to say NO

So, what kind of meetings you should avoid?

1. Status or context sharing meetings: Who is this meeting for? If the answer is not “all attendees” then this is a status report to someone. With a few exceptions, like the All Hands Meeting, a meeting with over 50 attendees is a clear sign of these types of meetings. Ask if there’s a good reason why this can’t be done by a simple document or email.
2. Meetings with no agenda: This one is easy. How can you get the most out of a meeting if you don’t know what the agenda is? Even if the attendees have all the context required, the agenda of the meeting is very likely to be hijacked with a different topic.
3. Meetings with no material: Okay, you got me, there’s an agenda. But, where can you get the necessary context to prepare for it? Hopefully, the organizer took the time to share what everyone needs to learn in advance. If you feel you need more context you should ask for it.
4. Meetings to self-motivate: When someone is procrastinating or just needing a little motivation to start with a project or task. It might sound like a good way to get some peer pressure and commitment but there’s no good reason to call a meeting and you should push back (unless you know this and still want to help).
5. The “I-prefer-face-to-face” meetings: When you hear someone saying “I think it’s always better to have a face-to-face conversation” what I actually hear is “I don’t know other ways to collaborate” and “I don’t care what kind of collaboration you prefer”. When the organizer calls for a meeting, she’s choosing the preferred way to collaborate for all attendees as well. Don’t be afraid to point out which way works best for you.

When to say YES

Alright, and when is a meeting justifiable?

1. For urgent/important problem-solving: When things go south, jumping to a quick call and sync up on how to proceed might be the best thing you can do. However, sometimes there’s no real need to do it “real-time”.
2. For relationship building purposes: When you join a new team, these meetings are key to build the trust you need to succeed in your role. Moreover, they serve as a space to talk about sensitive topics, and even to get personal. Don’t overlook these, especially when working with remote team members.
3. For brainstorming activities: When you need to foster creative thinking and generate ideas, collaborative sessions like design studios, empathy maps, and brainstorming sessions are great. Just don’t forget to have a moderator to make sure the session stays focused.
4. For retrospectives and feedback: When you need to reflect and learn from past mistakes as a team. They can be hard to run because trust should be enough so people would speak up. A moderator is also very much needed.

The short guide to preventing calendar bankruptcy

Here is a list of the things that I found useful to keep my calendar tidy:

• Plan your meetings at the beginning of the week and then avoid accepting or calling new meetings (unless critical)
• Schedule blocks of deep work. Create your own agenda
• Leave some slack so an unanticipated meeting doesn’t ruin your schedule
• Avoid time fragmentation by clustering meetings together
• Find when your brain works at its peak and protect it from meetings
• Process-oriented meetings around lunchtime (an unavoidable break)
• Practice saying ‘No’ more but always tell why
• Declare calendar bankruptcy if necessary and start over

I hope this post helps you free up some time from your calendar by identifying useless meetings that you can push back with the right arguments. With a bit of luck, your discipline can inspire others to do the same and raise the bar when it comes to calling meetings.