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In my video, I talk about this. Take notes on a pad of paper. Maybe have 1 designated minutes\notes taker. I always just show up to meetings with my pad of paper and pen.
No, but a good meeting should have everyone on the same page and action items for everyone to accomplish between the next meeting.
This is the trap I'm talking about. If meetings were efficient, you'd have less of them and could actually work undistracted on the projects.
You make it sound like people have control over the content and/or efficiency of the meetings they have to attend. Lol!
I can't take a device to my thrice yearly training meeting (which is mostly someone sharing the party line in spite of the party line always mentioning how future meetings are going to be interactive). So I take a notepad with crossword puzzle taped into it. I have ADD. Sitting still for an hour under any circumstances is torture for me. If I don't have a distraction, I end up being MUCH ruder by fidgeting or speaking impulsively.
Lucky for me, at those meetings I have moved to a seat on the floor because I can't take the chair any longer, and no one cares about that.
If I did have need for or use for my laptop at an actual meeting, I would lay the screen down so it wouldn't look as if I were doing something else.
Theres too many "meetings" today. I really wonder if upper management has anything to do these days when you consider 90 percent of their time is spent sitting around and talking and if not that doing only god knows what.
Meetings wouldn't be so bad if something gets "accomplished" from these meetings but generally they are all the same bunk. People spread their genius around, something stupid gets implemented and fails and more meetings happen. Just a constant cycle of reoccuring nonsense with no real end game.
If you ALL this time for hour meetings one after another, that automatically tells me you don't have much real responsibility yourself and someone needs to throw some workload on you. My offsite management team are incessant with the hour long meetings. "Hey are you going to make the meeting?" "No I'm too busy WORKING getting things accomplished"
You make it sound like people have control over the content and/or efficiency of the meetings they have to attend. Lol!
They might not totally but they can make suggestions. I do Sys Admin work and we're behind on a project. I've literally borrowed a page from the software development strategy Agile and said we need to have daily "scrum" meetings of 20 minutes or so. Basically stay on topic, get a day's worth of action items as well as get on the same page, and meet again the next day to share progress. Since we started doing that, that project is getting back on schedule. Most people are just passive in their jobs and don't take initiative to improve things. It's crazy how much time is wasted in meetings. If you have 5 people making $20 an hour, you're literally spending $100 an hour per meeting. That is a lot of lost productivity if the meeting isn't actually adding value.
Having too many meetings or too long of them can also be the issue. By imposing no cell phones nor laptops, you're trying to hide the symptom rather than dealing with the disease.
Theres too many "meetings" today. I really wonder if upper management has anything to do these days when you consider 90 percent of their time is spent sitting around and talking and if not that doing only god knows what.
Meetings wouldn't be so bad if something gets "accomplished" from these meetings but generally they are all the same bunk. People spread their genius around, something stupid gets implemented and fails and more meetings happen. Just a constant cycle of reoccuring nonsense with no real end game.
If you ALL this time for hour meetings one after another, that automatically tells me you don't have much real responsibility yourself and someone needs to throw some workload on you. My offsite management team are incessant with the hour long meetings. "Hey are you going to make the meeting?" "No I'm too busy WORKING getting things accomplished"
Among the many reasons for multiple meetings is the fact that most offices are understaffed today. This means instead of an efficient project organization, they've adopted matrix management. I know the theory is that matrix management is flexible, responsive, and efficient. Reality is that it's about the worst structure you can set up. So many people today are assigned to multiple cross functional teams, that very few people have just one job or project to worry about. Barney is lead of team A with Wilma and Fred. Betty is leader of team B with Wilma, Pebbles, and BamBam. Fred is leader of team C with Betty and Pebbles, and so on. So with all these mixed teams you are constantly meeting to coordinate things within the team and report to team leads. Very inefficient.
Quote:
Originally Posted by impulsivetravelerguy
They might not totally but they can make suggestions. I do Sys Admin work and we're behind on a project. I've literally borrowed a page from the software development strategy Agile and said we need to have daily "scrum" meetings of 20 minutes or so. Basically stay on topic, get a day's worth of action items as well as get on the same page, and meet again the next day to share progress. Since we started doing that, that project is getting back on schedule. ....
If you're in an organization that can get by with only one coordination meeting, that's great. Most people are on too many projects to focus only on a single meeting.
If you're in an organization that can get by with only one coordination meeting, that's great. Most people are on too many projects to focus only on a single meeting.
Well each project has a meeting so there's multiple meetings for different projects.
What about when the guy running the meeting stops because he "has to take this" and then just wanders off leaving the rest of us sitting there?
Yes, one of my Principals and all three of the Vice-Principals. It then filtered down to the Teacher Coordinator (department head) level. For awhile I was the only Coordinator who didn't do it.
It also may give out the perception that the meeting is unnecessary and that the work (eg being on the laptop at least) is trying to "catch up" on work that would be missed during the meeting.
My company doesn't need distractions in their meetings to be inefficient, they do that part fine themselves
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