Paul (@ppedrazzi) used to talk about a way to measure the cost of meetings. Pretty much everyone has had this idea, or if you haven’t, the people waiting for you have it.
Photo: Bring TIM! (Time Is Money) is a clock that… – (37signals)
Interesting stuff.
I usually try to take (and make) 30 minute meetings, versus the 60 minute default. The biggest problem with meetings, especially when people are on the phone is the lack of focus.
Meetings need agendas delivered in advance, and someone in charge of executing the agenda.
So say I anyway. You?
They’ve posted that before I believe…
Funny, Matt Topper was complaining about this on Twitter a couple of years ago, I answered his question.
I figured you, the devoted 37 Signals reader, would know. I have a dim memory of seeing the web-based one there in the past. Everyone complains about meetings. They are the new weather.
Having recently read REWORK, I think this is a great idea. I can think of several people who need it desperately. 🙂
Cheers
Tim…
And it’s called TIM! What’s not to like?
30 mins meeting. No personal waffle at the beginning. Brief agenda, brief minutes real-time, Google Wave type technology. Blocking your day out in 60 min chunks – the sure sign of a non-coder…. (think there might have been a previous appslab post on that one).
Too bad no one follows that manifesto, actually the problem is compounded by lateness bc of the lack of brevity 🙁
They need to spend a summer working and living in Germany. Cured me!
Interesting, stereotype rings true then.
Isn’t it ironic how we are using the social media tools we evangalize about connecting people to complain about meetings?
That said, I go for the 30 minute meeting for two reasons 1)Usually it is plenty of time to get what you need, 2) It allows me to fit more meetings into a day.
Complaining is both a modern luxury and a basic human condition. So, why not complain about everything on social media? It would be odd if we didn’t spend a large amount our “social” time complaining.
The primary point here was about waste though. One reason people loathe meetings is they feel unproductive. Calculating the waste involved should help drive efficiency and make meeting more productive, in theory anyway 🙂
At a large campus with large buildings, you should insist on a buffer between meetings. People rarely account for travel time between them, which becomes wasteful and dominoes through a day of back-to-back meetings.