How I engineered effective meetings to stop wasting time (3-phase framework + đ Free Strategy)
Learn how to set agendas, steer discussions, and capitalize on meeting notes to ensure every session yields tangible results. Say goodbye to meeting chaos and hello to streamlined success with these e
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âWe have too many meetingsâ
How many of you had this sticky note on one of your retro boards? I bet most of you.
Engineers are paid to build software, not to be in meetings.
However, building software is a collaborative effort. The bigger the company, the more moving pieces, and the more meetings you need to do even the simplest change.
When people complain about meetings, itâs not about the time. Itâs about not making progress
On the other hand, writing code is clear progress. You merge commits, and you move tasks from left to right in a sprint board.
To make a meeting feel the same way, you need to drive it proactively.
In this post youâll learn:
The setup of a meeting, because just gathering people wonât create a magical outcome
The driving of the meeting, because a conversation with people always goes through another topic.
The after-meeting work, because we forget what we talked about.
Before the meeting
Send an email with the invite to the audience.
Itâs tricky to identify who to invite. If people think they should be invited and they are not, theyâll be mad you ignored them. If people attend a meeting and it doesnât add value to their work, theyâll be mad you lost their time
Combine adding more people than needed to the invite, make clear their attendance is optional and send meeting notes to avoid the FOMO. Now whoever decides to attend is their choice, you offer a feasible alternative.
Prepare a document
Even if itâs just an outline of talking points. Never hold a meeting without a structure.
Include this in the invite for anyone to take a look and use it to decide whether to attend.
Include agenda and objective in the email
The agenda is the expected structure of the meeting, with time allocation for each section. At Amazon, meetings are document-driven. Most 1-hour meetings are 20 minutes of reading and 40 minutes of discussion
The objective is the outcome you need by the end of the meeting. E.g. A decision on the technology choice for project X.
Donât sweat about the preparations
When I started my career, I would spend from 30 minutes to an hour crafting the best possible email explaining a problem, deciding which people to invite, or thinking about the talking points.
Now I am more experienced and I automated most of the process.
Attendees: If Iâm doubting, then I invite my entire team, making it clear everyone is optional.
Email body: I have a template to consider the agenda, the objective, and always share a document. Takes me 30 seconds to craft that email
The document: I have my templates for typical project documents, like technical designs and operational readiness. Also for ad-hoc topics, like a 1-pager to discuss an obstacle or a 1-pager for a proposal.