Welcome to Our Meeting

Welcome to "The Lone Coder" article #62. Today we'll be discussing how to run a team meeting, with a presentation on tips for the reluctant meeting chairman and secretary.

There was one store that, for years, was the popular place that local men went to for quality clothing. Let's call it "Bucky's", as its real name is not important. Owned in the same family for generations, this store had salesmen who were paid to get to know regular customers, recommending colours and materials, taking measurements and arranging for a custom fit. They made their money on making the man who shopped there look good.

Over the years Bucky's selection had dwindled away, their sales staff slowly becoming less friendly, less capable and fewer in number. Finally, they closed up shop and moved into a strip mall, a fraction of their former glory.

I had been buying clothes at Bucky's for nearly 30 years and, as a loyal customer, I went to their new location to buy some pants. They didn't have the colours I wanted and but I bought a pair and the only salesperson on duty pinned them for alteration. When I picked up the pants a few days later, the guy at the cash register told me I might want to check the length. When I got the pants back home, I found out the legs were far too long.

I took the pants back to Bucky's and the seamstress told me that she would correct the length free of charge...provided the pants were dry cleaned first. "You took the pants out of our store," she said. "There are health considerations. Bring the pants back in the dry cleaner's wrapping, along with a dry cleaning receipt to prove they've been dry cleaned, and we'll fix the pants."

"I only wore them once, and they're freshly washed," I said. However, that wasn't good enough. She refused to check the pants and verify that the legs was too long.

Dry cleaning, of course, is very expensive. Instead, I went across town to a little tailor shop I knew. The tailor, in fact, worked for six years at Bucky's back in their golden age. The tailer checked the pants and confirmed that they were hemmed more than an inch too long and would shorten the legs for a mere $10.

"Bucky's wanted them dry cleaned," I said. "Do I need to dry clean them?"

"Why?" the tailor replied. He had been in business for over 30 years. "You couldn't go anywhere with hemming like this, and it's not like I need to adjust the crotch."

This was exactly what I was thinking. It wasn't the lack of selection, their poorly trained staff or even the bad measurements that troubled me. I was troubled because my word wasn't trusted and my loyalty wasn't respected. It was as if me and Bucky's were no longer a team.

Trust, honesty and respect are the keys to running a successful Information Technology team meeting. I've been lucky enough...or unlucky enough, depending on your point of view...to be a chairman and/or secretary at hundreds of meetings across several different organizations. I don't claim to be a meeting expert but generally people find my meetings productive and, occasionally, even fun, with a minimum of the checking-the-watch factor. So I'll share with you my approach to holding a typical meeting. Perhaps you will find useful tips here.

 Preparation

You don't just show up at a meeting as the chairman and expect it to be successful. Like most things in life, success in a meeting means hard work. There are no short cuts. Spend at least 1/2 hour of preparation for every 1 hour of your meeting. Spend more time if you're doing a presentation. This preparation time does not include the time it takes to create the agenda.

• Try to spend uninterrupted time to prepare for the meeting, to keep you focus. In a chaotic environment, consider spending time before or after regular working hours to prepare for the meeting.
• Read through the minutes of previous two or three meetings. Determine what issues need to be tackled, in what order and who will need to be invited. Note what issues may have to be postponed for lack of time. Send reminders about previously assigned tasks the day before the meeting, to give busy people reasonable time to address them.
• Talk with people conversationally before the meeting. Don't necessarily question them but let them talk to you about what their challenges are. Use this information to help plan the priorities. If people are busy, ask them if someone else can represent them at the meeting.
• Make sure you have a camera, preferably with a mini-tripod. The camera can be used to photograph sketches for inclusion with the minutes (as opposed to trying to describe them or copy them by hand). The camera can also be used to record portions of your meeting to review later to look for things to improve.
• Book all necessary people...but no more than that. Determine who really needs to be there, who is optional, and who should receive an account of what happened.
• If you need to cancel a meeting, do so at least one hour before the meeting starts. I can't tell you how many business meetings I've been to that were canceled by an email 5 minutes AFTER the meeting started. Make sure you have someone present who can start the meeting for you in case you are late. If you can't give reasonable notice, it is bigger waste of time to cancel a meeting than to hold it for ten minutes and adjourn.
• If you are shy or insecure, try coming to work an hour early, or stay after work, and practice in the boardroom where the meeting will occur. You can also invite a "wingman": someone to sit by you and quietly coach you as you run the meeting.

 The Agenda

The agenda is a vital piece of information for any meeting. It should state the purpose of the meeting and a road-map for what topics will be addressed in what order. The agenda should prepare the attendees to participate. Spend an uninterrupted 1/2 hour preparing the agenda for a 1 hour meeting.

• Make sure all discussion topics are listed. This is to avoid wasting people's time. For example, someone who is afraid that an issue important to them will be overlooked may try to take over the meeting but they won't if they see the issue scheduled on the agenda.
• It should be posted no later than 1 hour before a meeting—preferably the day before—to give people time to mentally prepare for the meeting. There is no point in handing out an agenda when the meeting starts.
• Briefly indicate the purpose of the meeting: who called the meeting, how often it is held, what types of issues are being discussed.
• At the start of the agenda, have a brief recap section to review the history of the meetings and remind attendees of the tasks assigned last week. Discussion of these tasks should be held off to the meeting proper.
• List discussion topics and which people own these topics. If the meeting is more of a brainstorming session, you still need to outline a plan for how the meeting will unfold (such as introductions, discussions, and the wrap-up).
• In most cases, do not include strict presentation times. The object is to spend as much time as required while, at the same time, wrapping up the meeting as quickly as possible. It's up to the chairman to monitor the clock and manage the meeting's progress.
• If a topic was deferred from a previous meeting, indicate in the agenda that it is being carried forward and how long ago it was initially brought up.
• If presenters have brief notes on what they want to cover, include them in the agenda. If they want people to review material, include the material in an attachment or separate email.
• Include sections for task assignment and a proposed day for the next meeting so these items will not be overlooked if you run short of time.
• Check the spelling.

 Running the Meeting

The chairman of the meeting must maintain meeting priorities, watch the clock and the manage the social issues. In most cases, everyone is looking to you for guidance in how the meeting will unfold.

• Remember that, in most cases, people are not there to hear you (the chairman) talk. You are the servant of the others.
• The secretary should bring paper as opposed to a laptop for making notes. These notes are not the minutes but reminders for what needs to be in the minutes.
• Take attendance. Include who was present, who was absent (including the reason such as sickness, vacation or scheduling conflicts). This is for conflict resolution and determining who really needs to be at future meetings.
• Be polite. Say "please" and "thank you". People are often defensive at meetings, especially if they worked hard and are concerned how their work is judged and appreciated. Show respect to people and recognize people's risks and efforts.
• Focus on the job of chairman and/or secretary...don't do 3 things at once. Don't check your email or work on other projects while you are chairing.
• Make sure people indicate clearly what is "off the record". It is not always obvious what people consider to be private or unofficial information.
• Give short introductions to topics, perhaps two or three sentences - what has been done and what the objectives are today as part of the larger plan.
• Give time to people to complain (or "vent"). It shows consideration for people's struggle and defuses tensions. Don't dwell indefinitely on the negatives. Instead, bring the meeting back with sincerity, saying "I understand how difficult it must be. So how do we do now solve this?" Or "That's a good point. Let's bring it up next week when we have more time to spend on it."
• Some people are shy. For each topic, make sure everyone has their say and make sure they are not intimidated by or interrupted by loud people. It doesn't hurt to say, "Before we move on, you've been quiet, Fred. What do you think?" Don't let the extroverted people dominate the meeting.
• Watch the clock. Find natural breaks in the conversation as stop points where things can be wrapped up and further discussion can happen at the next meeting.
• Be prepared to write down new issues, and let people know that they need to stick to the topic but the new issue will be addressed when the meeting is over, or at the next meeting if there is no time.
• Unless you have a firm deadline, give people until the next meeting to digest the issue before making a final decision. This is especially important if new information on an issue has been revealed and it's not always obvious what the implications are or how important the information is. This builds cooperation and consensus.
• Clearly indicate what topics need to be deferred until the next meeting and why.
• Wrap up the meeting around 10 minutes before the end of the meeting time. Review the tasks people have been assigned. Confirm the time of the next meeting. Thank people for coming. Give people time for a bathroom and email break. This shows respect for other meetings and encourages other chairmen to do the same for your meetings.

 Minutes

The secretary's job is to create a detailed account of every major occurrence of the meeting. That means items related to tasks to be carried out, items related to conflict resolution, items to build consensus, identifying who said what and what the results of the meeting are. The minutes should read like a story of what happened, clear to anyone who did not attend. Expect to spend at least 1 hour writing the minutes for a 1 hour meeting, and expect at least 1 page of minutes per hour.

• Always send minutes. A meeting without a record of what happened is effectively a meeting that never happened.
• Write up the minutes as soon as possible after the meeting is concluded, or on the same day if at all possible, while the information is fresh in your short-term memory.
• Minutes should contain all significant points raised, and by whom. This is to resolve disputes and so attendees know who to talk to about specifics.

• Include the attendance, the tasks assigned and the next meeting time. These items are necessary for people to prepare for the next meeting.
• Be specific about assigned tasks: who, what, where and when.
• The minutes must be detailed enough for people to carry out their assigned tasks. They must identify people. Minutes that say "these are the conclusions" and nothing else are missing 80% of their value.
• Determine who should receive the minutes. In general, it is better to send minutes to too many people than to too few people.
• If the meeting is of interest to several groups, consider posting them on the company's intranet or Wiki.
• Check your spelling.
• Have someone review the minutes to make sure they are accurate and understandable prior to posting them.
• Post the minutes within one day of the meeting, long before any follow-up meeting, so that the minutes can be reviewed and verified by the people who attended.

 Dealing with the Unexpected

If people who have authority over the chairman or project come to the meeting with the intention of destroying the meeting—people who treat the meeting as an episode of "Survivor"—there's not much the chairman can do. This is unfortunate side-effect of the way many companies are structured, worse in multi-matrix companies where several people attending a meeting could have authority over the chairman, each with a different agenda. Since the chairman can request but cannot enforce discipline, there's little that can be done in these situations except to repeat the purpose of the meeting and request a chance for others to speak.

If two people get into an angry disagreement, encourage them to talk to each other one-on-one outside of the meeting. For example, suggest that they go out for a coffee. An angry disagreement is in no one's best interests.

If the meeting has too many people, or covers too many topics, consider breaking the meeting into two meetings but send the minutes of both meetings to all attendees, or at least, mention what was covered in the other meeting during the recap at the start of the meeting.

If in doubt, work towards the best possible solution for everyone. When the company is successful, everyone's future is secure.

 The Post-Mortem

In a series of meetings, this comes back to the Preparation phase. How did the meeting go? Did the right people attend? Were expectations too loose or too rigid, too passive or too aggressive? Did someone try to derail the meeting? Use this information to plan the next meeting.

 The Big Question

Sounds like a great way to hold meetings, but you may be asking, "Why should I spend as much effort creating a quality meetings as I would spend creating a quality piece of software? Is it worth it? What's the payback? After all, isn't it just meaningless paperwork?"

No, it isn't meaningless paperwork. When you have 10 people at a meeting, your work as chairman/secretary is to make those 10 people more productive. That couple of hours you spend on preparations can save a lot more time than that combined across those 10 people, time that would have been lost to misunderstandings, conflicting priorities, or trying to do things on their own. People who short cut running meetings usually do so by eliminating the human part of the equation. Teams are made of human beings.

You are planting the seeds of trust, respect and honesty. These values are the essential foundations of teamwork. Distrust means you cannot build your work on the actions of others. Disrespect means you cannot have confidence in your contribution. Dishonesty means that you cannot be certain your efforts are effective. Keep the meeting real. Deal with real problems. Work on real solutions. Treat people as real co-contributors to solutions. This will improve the productivity and morale, going far beyond the meeting and into your whole department or company.

I didn't feel much like a member of the team when I bought those pants from Bucky's. I suppose a few die hard old-timers will continue to get their clothes from there. It's convenient even though the selection, fitting and service are poor. As for me, I'm better off buying my clothes from chain stores and taking them to that little tailor shop across town. They make me look good but also make me feel trusted and respected. To make them able to do that is worth my investment of $10 in their business, don't you think?

Comments may be made on the Linux Cafe forum.

March 31, 2010