Meeting Chaos

In this post, I’m going to quickly list all of the things that come to mind about why meetings and scheduling are so terrible in most organizations.

1. There are too many
2. They are too long for the content they need to cover
3. The don’t have objectives or a purpose (stated or unstated)
4. Attendees often don’t know why they are there
5. Non-attendees don’t know why they aren’t there
6. Whiteboard markers don’t work
7. Someone wants a “status” update that could be handled in a 5 min. email
8. Outlook
9. No one takes notes
10. People are afraid to talk because their boss or someone else’s boss is there
11. Attendees have been in meetings all day already
12. Attendees are worried about the real work they have to do
13. There is no meeting place designated
14. Someone is in the designated meeting place already
15. The temperature in the room is uncomfortably off by +- 10 degrees
16. The chairs are garbage
17. Half of the room is writing an email
18. Someone(s) is (are) arrogant
19. The meeting is double booked
20. Attendees are late
21. Attendees leave early
22. The meeting was really for two people to fight something out, but they wanted an audience
23. Too many people
24. Too few people
25. Colds (lost voice)
26. Bad timing (no gaps for focus)
27. Runs over time for no good reason
28. Phones ringing
29. Video conferencing bad
30. Microphone bad
31. Can’t find the right dongle (dang it USB-c)
32. Dongle doesn’t work (dang it Display Port)
33. Input is wrong
34. TV remote batteries are dead
35. Airplay is slow
36. Chromecast (or Airplay) is on wrong wi-fi
37. Remote people can’t see whiteboard
38. Wi-fi too slow
39. No decision possible
40. No decision maker in the meeting
41. The purpose of the meeting has been invalidated by a previous meeting but the meeting owner doesn’t know it
42. There are too many