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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

6. No chairs. People will soon learn to focus on what must be done and skip all the B.S. before they get tired.

7. No cell phones or laptops. People must focus on the task at hand and nothing else.

8. Lock the door at the start time and don't unlock it for anyone. People will soon learn to show up on time.

9. Designate a referee to say "One at a time," "Take that off-line," or "So what?" Amazing how well kindergarten rules still work.

10. Kill anyone who says any of these words or phrases: scope, mission, best practices, teaching moment, outside the box, domain, tangent, or <x> is the new <y>.

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I used to chair the meetings at my 100+ person housing co-op. Even if not everyone showed up, you have a lot of people with conflicting views and ideas shouting over each other. Additionally, I would stab that the average age is 20. Alcohol was also allowed for those of age.

We have a culture where it was acceptable for me to bang a gavel and tell people who were rambling or cross-talking to "SHUT THE FUCK UP." Simple and effective.

Toward the end of my tenure meetings where we interviewed 10 new members, reviewed an officer, added several new house policies, and allowed community announcements took 45 minutes.

So, my point is, it's important for everyone on the team to agree to rather firm terms. Nobody will be mad about this and people do start watching how they speak. Hell, I'm rambling too much right now. "SHUT THE ...

If the door to a meeting is ever locked, I would assume that they could get by without me and never show up for a meeting on that subject again.

Also when should the referee say 'so what'? Whenever somebody complains? Because in a company which needs these rules, that is the only thing that right will be used for.

> If the door to a meeting is ever locked, I would assume that they could get by without me and never show up for a meeting on that subject again.

Unless it was a meeting that you wanted, or needed, to be there for!

If you don't make it to my meeting, or send a deputy/replacement who can act on your behalf, then you don't get a say in the decisions we make that meeting.

Worked really well at the last place I was at, people made damn sure they got there on time and if not that someone knowledgeable took their place.

"8. Lock the door at the start time and don't unlock it for anyone. People will soon learn to show up on time."

Great one. I will never forget the embarrassment endured when I showed up 2 minutes late for my (very first) senior high-school business class and the teacher had locked me out of the room.

Needless to say I was never late for that class the rest of the year.

In high school (where it's mandatory to attend), I would consider this unacceptable. The law dictates that you are there unless you specifically drop out. If the teacher locked me out for being two minutes late, I would be in the vice principal's office two minutes after that.

In college I would find this more acceptable, the professor can set any classroom rules he wants regarding attendance.

In the workplace, a real, office-style workplace, I would hope the person who locked the door would be quickly reprimanded. Why did you invite the person (and take their precious time) if you obviously don't want them there?

>Why did you invite the person (and take their precious time) if you obviously don't want them there?

I don't know, why couldn't they have made the effort to show up on time?

At least at the corporation I work for, we have a 5 minute grace period to allow people to get from meeting to meeting (or from the lab to a meeting, or from the warehouse, or from the other buildings, etc). If you have a meeting in one building that gets out at 1pm and a meeting that starts in the other at 1pm, it's difficult to get there on time.

There's a reason classes in school and college have a 10-15 minute "passing time" built in.

Exactly. We did have 10 minutes in between classes. Ample time to get around.

It's not like you miss much on the first day of class, either.

If I had a good reason, like if I yelled "my mother died" through the glass, I'm sure she would have let me in. But I didn't.

9. Designate a referee to say

If the guy who _called_ the meeting isn't doing this, it's time to leave.

Disagree on the no phones/laptops thing. I've been to plenty of meetings where people went around in circles trying to decide on some fact that could have easily been looked up online in 30 seconds.

Also, though I do appreciate the need for people to show up on time, shit happens. And the more people there are, the more likely it is for shit to happen (if everyone in a 20 person daily meeting had one bad day per month, you'd have on average one late person per meeting). It gets even more awkward when someone you lock out is needed in order for the meeting to move forward.

Maybe you can compromise and either have one person bring a laptop or have one in the meeting space. That way it is only used when needed specifically to advance the goals of the meeting.

I think the no phones/laptops rule is more about "no checking email or Facebook" than "don't look up needed information".

I've been to many meetings where I am the only person without a laptop. Most people are zoning out on email, which circularly reinforces that meetings are a waste of time so you better bring your laptop so you can at least catch up on your email. ;)

#6 is probably the best suggestion ever... except for all those "virtual" meetings I have to attend.

We charge a 1$ fine each time you were late for a standup. Works like a charm.

8 won't really work if you have enough meetings. If you get conflicting or back-to-back meetings/conferences/... you're going to miss either the end or the start of one of them. It's better if you show up at all in that case than get locked out because the rooms are 5min. away from each other.

Maybe it would work for a small number of people, but otherwise it's just harmful. (I skip the issue of having that many meetings though - this is not something you can always control)

6. No chairs. People will soon learn to focus on what must be done and skip all the B.S. before they get tired.

Won't work if you have a lot of adepts of standing desks, though.

In brainstorming sessions we would some times designate one person to be the devils advocate.

The fact about meetings is that they are often nothing but battle grounds for various people to show how good they are.

By designating a devils advocate up front you make sure that people spend their time fighting him/her and thus you avoid having too many "critical thinkers" who only look for flaws.

6: Not everyone can stand for significant amounts of time.

8: If you lock the door when I'm in the room, I'm leaving the room.

Numbers 6 and 9 seem at odds with each other.

6 says there should be no chairs and people will learn to focus but 9 says people are kids and need kindergarten rules.

FWIW I think 9 defines the role of the chair, anyway.

>the role of the chair

to sit on. At least in the context of rule #6.

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