The 7 Rules You Should Follow to Optimize Your Meetings

How this Software Director connects his passion for music to crafting productive meetings

Have you ever been sitting in a meeting, feeling like it’s going nowhere? Getting caught in the same unproductive meeting can happen to all of us. How to stop this? Well, sometimes all you need is a little inspiration from an unexpected passion, like, say, music!

In this edition of #Level-Up, we chat with John Schloman, Director of Engineering here at Underdog. He shares a bit about himself, how he connects his passion for music with his work, and the seven rules for running a productive and efficient meeting.

Need to re-amp your professional game (see what we did there) — keep reading!

Did you always want to get into engineering? What did you want to be when you were a kid?

Oh, it was the exact opposite. I wanted to be an artist. I tried to paint stuff. My parents said I needed to attend college, but I am still interested in the arts. Music is a big part of my life. I go to a lot of concerts. I’ve already gone to 37 this year! I went to South by Southwest with my wife. I actually met my wife at a show. Randomly we’re standing in the back. We’re both very tall people, and, as she always said, she picked me up and not the other way around.

I’ve met some of my best friends there. I’ve been to concerts all over the place. I’ve traveled for shows. I’ve actually done backyard punk rock shows at my house at the end of the pandemic and everything!

Wow! You are clearly very passionate about music; how did you become passionate about running productive meetings?

A VP asked me if I wanted to become a manager. It was after we had a very contentious meeting that had been going on for many hours. I was actually extremely selfish in my mind. I needed to get out of this meeting. Everybody was talking past each other. So I walked up to the whiteboard and said, “It sounds like what we’re discussing here are these two major options. I want to get a quick vote: Which of these options do we actually agree is the best solution for us right now?”

For me, there’s a massive amount of value in helping lead meetings and discussions and doing much of that custodial work and, in a way, supercharge the team and make them more productive. Having a strategy around my team’s meetings has been a great way to help us move forward and be more productive.

OK, let’s jump in! What are your rules for running a productive and efficient meet?

Rule #1: Choose your band carefully: only invite people to a meeting who are absolutely necessary

You can always add more people, but it’s always the worst thing to try to remove people from meetings when everyone who was even marginally involved in the topic was invited. You end up needing more time for everybody to get a chance to speak, but typically only some get their vision heard. And that’s dangerous because you have a great opportunity, all of this energy and all these people in this major focus. But if you don’t turn it into constructive action, you feel this sense of, “Oh, here we go again.”

Rule #2: Always be ready for the next show: meetings should future-proof ourselves

For me, the crucial thing is to have a meeting to avoid a worse discussion in the future. Suppose we keep on having the same meetings. In that case, if we keep having a chronic problem, we’re just gathering together and not having an effective discussion. To future proof, make sure you are optimizing your process as you go.

This is a great opportunity to jump in here and tackle the problem while becoming effective at tackling problems, not just this issue but anything moving forward.

Rules #3: Plan for a gold record: have action items and goals

If people attend a meeting and chit-chat, that’s usually a bad sign. It’s crucial that a meeting has specific artifacts that come out of it. It’s like, “Hey, here’s the design. Here’s the document with all of the updates. Here’s the improvement. Here is the user experience that we have.” If you have an artifact that comes out of a meeting that tells you that you’re adding value. Otherwise, there’s no sense of urgency. You’re just getting people together and probably not answering anything. So I’m a huge fan of checklists.

Rule #4: Don’t let your music get stale: never set a recurring meeting

The worst thing you can do is make a meeting instantly recurring because now you’ve just committed somebody infinitely to doing something. Also, if you don’t allow people to modify it, it’s on their calendar, and they have no control anymore.

Almost no problem is so important and chronic that you need to have a meeting that will continue perpetually.

Decide a timeframe you need to meet. Say, “Let’s meet for the next month on this.” And then, at that point, decide whether to continue or not. You can always create more future meetings, but often it’s hard for people to remove meetings from their calendars. So it’s super important.

Rule #5: Harmonize: work together and give people pre-work

Give people pre-work. If you give someone a document, you don’t need to walk through it during the meeting. We can discuss your comments on it, and then we turn a 2-hour talk into a 15-min talk.

Rule #6: Get the right instruments: make sure you have the right tools for the job

Bad meetings are often a symptom of a problem. Maybe your team is too big. You may need to split your team into smaller units to give enough space for everybody to talk. Maybe your process isn’t working anymore, or the team isn’t engaged in getting the answers that they need. There may be tools that you need to buy. I always hate throwing money at a problem, but a great tool, especially if that tool is something that you don’t need to maintain, can be very impactful.

Rule #7: Adjust to the beat: think about the project/meeting life cycle

I always construct a meeting based on what part of the project or phase we are in.

First, when a team starts off, and it’s very new, there’s no need for meetings.

Then, there’s a point where you realize, “Wait a minute. We have different perspectives, and I have gaps of knowledge about what my partners have on this.” So usually, that’s when you have to build up meetings and do a lot more synchronized sessions.

Often there’s a point where everybody starts sharing their wisdom. That’s when we really develop that psychological safety and trust. We also get that shared mission and shared understanding. Once you begin to understand the work that others do, you don’t need to actually meet with them because you can internalize that part. We go from heavily relying on process to depending on best practices that the individuals internalize. Usually, that’s a great point where you can go from synchronized to asynchronous meetings.

What overall impact did focusing on how you meet have?

I think, taking it back to music, there are 2 lessons:

First, you never know what your next favorite band will be. So walking in with preconceived notions will hurt you in life and work. You never know what or who will have a great answer or solution. So always have that kind of humility and make sure everyone has the opportunity to voice their opinion.

The second lesson is to think about people and the team (or band) first. If individuals have a very transactional view of our relationships, that isn’t how that community thrives.It’s the same thing at work. Individuals need trust. They need to feel they are part of a team, that there is a partnership here, and that they are given chances to grow and have ownership and guidance.

You can see that in communities that thrive in the arts and in software.

Want to learn more about our team here at Underdog? Check out our culture and careers page here and see how we are changing the game!