Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

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I’m always experimenting with new things. What do you do to keep meetings manageable and sane?

1. No phone calls. Use email. I'll respond when I can, almost always the same or next day.

2. No texts. Use email. See #1.

3. No status meetings. Email me your status report. I'll email you mine. Column titles should include: Item#, Project#, Title, Beneficiary, Responsible, Phase, Promise Date, Status, Disposition, Questions.

4. No "standing meetings". If you need regular (as in weekly) meetings, just send me an email with status, problems, questions, etc. the same time every week. I will answer you. My answer may include a meeting request.

5. No "all hands" meetings. Send us all an email.

6. Schedule any meetings that really require 1 hour over lunch. I hate to eat alone. Two birds, one stone.

7. 15 minutes is a waste of time to stop, meet, restart.

8. 30 minutes is usually good. (OP was right)

9. Meet in my office. I'm too busy to travel.

10. If our meeting is scheduled for 10:00 and you're not there by 10:01, I lock the door. No meeting. If it's with several people, I will only meet with those on time.

11. Every meeting requires some form of written agenda, with appropriate content and length, that must be emailed ahead of time. Agenda topics: Date, Time, Length, Required Attendees, Business Problem, Topics to Cover, Expected Result, Expected Next Steps (if possible). There is no such thing as "Optional Attendees". There is no such thing as a meeting to determine the agenda for the meeting.

12. Your best bet: my regular happy hours double as "open office hours", usually from 5 to 7: Tuesday: Bar Louie, Wednesday, B.J.s, Thursday, Tony Romo's. These "meetings" have always been the best.

Agree with 10/12.

> Schedule any meetings that really require 1 hour over lunch.

For the love of God no. This almost always ends up turning into an excuse for managers to make your lunchtime into work time.

> If our meeting is scheduled for 10:00 and you're not there by 10:01, I lock the door.

I get that it's important to be punctual, but isn't this a bit extreme?

> I get that it's important to be punctual, but isn't this a bit extreme?

If your meeting is scheduled for 30 minutes, then 1 minute of delay is already 3.3% of the meeting wasted. 5 minutes of typical courtesy buffer is almost 17%! It may be important if your schedule is full. Also it sends a clear message: value time of everyone, and if you can't be bothered to be exactly on time, then your meeting is probably not that important and maybe shouldn't be held at all.

I don't know ... Maybe if we are going to war or something but if your life is that serious to get into 1 minute == 3.3%, that just feels weird like maybe those people the drop out and disconnect from society have a point. :)

agreed. was just thinking about the shuffling in/out time of a few people - getting seated, checking if a projector works, etc. that's easily 1-2 minutes at the start or end - 6% of the time gone!!

edit: the time to get up and lock the door, then unlock it, and to likely admonish the person who was late - that's also wasted time.

If time is that precious, then don't waste travelling to the meeting room and do a video call instead.

Interesting. My experience (as someone low on the totem pole) is pretty much the opposite. E-mail requires the recipient perform the critical "three Rs": Read, Remember, Respond. This is, apparently, a significant barrier to conversation for many people in the workplace.

If I had $5 for every time I've sent an E-mail, re-sent as a reminder, then re-re-sent as a final reminder, then found it was not read by anyone on the To: line, I could probably retire today. My favorite is sitting down in a meeting, with someone projecting their screen, and seeing the little "unread mail" badge on their mail icon that shows they have 12,802 unread E-mails in their inbox. So THAT'S why I never get a response from that guy--it all makes sense!

I've pretty much given up on E-mail for anything important. For folks in parallel with me on the org chart, generally, I'll send an E-mail (which will go unread) so I have a "Cover My Ass" record of communication, then immediately have either a face-to-face or telephone conversation. For folks above me, I'll send the C.M.A. E-mail, then work with their assistant to get a 5-15 minute slot on their calendar wherein I can deliver the message face-to-face.

Different things work for different people. However, I think this really overestimates the efficiency of email as a communication method to replace meetings. Personally, I think for the most part phone meetings with occasional screen sharing is usually sufficient but so much either gets lost in email or requires more effort to communicate effectively that I feel like this is more like "I don't want to deal with people" than about efficiently completing tasks. Also, I agree with the other person the lunch time thing and after hours thing just kind of makes me sad. If you replace email with phone calls, I mostly agree with it. Definitely agree with throwing out the all hands stuff, it's just a vestige of some Methodology fad.

Communicating by email is very effective as a way to promote rubber-ducking (http://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/). Unless you want to look like an idiot, you generally take the time to think out and present your ideas in a cogent way when it is through email. Get somebody in a face-to-face or phone meeting, and things go all hand-wavy way too fast.

Most of these are great if you can get away with them; of course it depends on how much authority you have to set the rules. (For example, I would love it if my workplace followed the "no all hands meetings" rule, but it ain't gonna happen in my lifetime, and I certainly can't make it happen.)

> If our meeting is scheduled for 10:00 and you're not there by 10:01, I lock the door. No meeting. If it's with several people, I will only meet with those on time.

I sympathize with the desire, but I have never worked in a workplace where everyone always had control of their time to the minute. If they do in your workplace, great, but I doubt this advice will generalize very well.

...and who wants to work with you , seriously ?

In real world its not you who always set the rules , otherwise you won't be commenting on this wishy site offering get-rich-quick advice, would you ?

No "all hands" meetings. Send us all an email.

Plenty of people ignore group emails, and there are times when there are things that all hands do need to know.

I am the worlds biggest flake when it comes to email.

If you send me a chat, I'm liable to just tap you on your shoulder and talk to you in person instead of chat back.

Are you the person who calls someone after a text message? Cause that's how you end up with a silent ring tone.

I don't use text messages much (typing on a phone is too low bandwidth); and about 25% of my work-related instant messages will turn into a phone conversation (at least 50% of those calls will add VNC to look at code). Both parties can talk with much lower latency and higher bandwidth than they can type.

It's about more than "I can save the most of my time by arbitrarily interrupting people because my talking is faster than my typing".

Ouch. How are you planning to fix that?

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