Saturday, October 25, 2014
Get organized to run meetings effectively
Unclutterer: There are a lot of things I like to do in this world, but running a meeting isn’t one of them. Years ago, I had a boss who would call me into his office and talk for a good half hour. As I walked back to my desk, I’d think, “So, what just happened in there?” Now, when I’m in charge of a meeting, I worry: will my attendees walk away with a clear idea of what was said and what, if anything, needs to be done?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
14 comments:
I’ll be honest, I was really hoping for slightly more enlightening information…
I have the great responsibility of stepping in the role of Project Manager for Carnegie Scenic in the coming week(s) and as part of that I’ll be facilitating the daily planning meetings. So when I saw this article I thought to myself, “wow, great timing!” With that, I think I should at the very least be able to implore the advice noted from David Allen’s “Getting Things Done,” as that meeting should hopefully generate tasks that myself or other members of the team need to complete. The “Okay my next actions are…” statement or some variation of it might be applicable, and useful in making sure everyone is on the same page with the goals moving forward from day to day, especially as the typical goal is for us to be discussing the next day or the day after that, as opposed to the work that’s supposed to be happening that particular evening. The links that the author provides actually hold some valuable information, and reading more about what he summarizing about meeting types and strategies is actually pretty useful. What I’ve really taken away from this is article is properly managing your own level of preparedness. Even if I don’t distribute an agenda, making one for myself so that I can keep the meeting properly on track and organized is the key, or at least a step in the right direction.
This article makes a great statement that meetings should be worth our time. So often in theater meetings are squeezed in during everyone's free half hour of the day and to have a meeting that is not worth anyone's time is the most frustrating thing I can imagine. As a production manager, I try very hard to prioritize what is happening in a meeting to things that are useful for the whole group, but sometimes it doesn't work. I especially liked the idea stated in this article that work expands to fill space. It always seems that way with smaller projects--you don't think it's going to be a challenge, but it expands and the envelope is pushed when it doesn't need to be. Another good point he brings up in this is that at the end of a meeting can be clearer and decisive if you review action items to send everyone away with their tasks and also create a clear end to the meeting.
I agree with Abby that the article is saying that meetings should be worth our time. We should make sure we need to have a meeting before having one (and cancel it if it becomes unnecessary. Swallow your pride. Don't have the meeting you once needed to have if you don't need to have it anymore.) If the meeting is mandatory, such as a production meeting every week, it is the production managers job to do their best to find SOMETHING worth discussing. Some weeks may be more fruitful than others, but no weeks should completely waste everyone's time. One thing this article doesn't touch on is how to get people to discuss meeting items in the meeting. When the meeting disperses, there are often 5 immediate side conversations that begin. Some of those probably should have been discussed in the actual meeting. I wish the article gave some advice on how to get people to see that what they don't think is important to the group actually might be.
Oh man, meetings… I actually like meetings, when they’re efficient and useful of course. I agree with Kassondra that post-meeting side bars are huge here, and sometimes that information might have actually been useful to the whole team. On the other hand, sometime people start discussing items that are only of importance to two or three of the people involved, which can waste everybody else’s time. This article has some great advice on preparing for meetings, but there isn’t much on actually running them, aside from the actions agenda, which is definitely invaluable. It can be hard to keep people from straying off topic or jumping ahead in meetings, and the best way to deal with that is to politely but firmly steer the conversation back on track, which is when a clearly defined agenda and outlined goals come in handy. This article does a great job of emphasizing how important it is to prepare in order for a meeting to be successful, and I will keep some of these things in mind when running meetings in the future.
This sounds very familiar...Tech Management this past Wednesday anybody? The article states some of the exact same things we just went over in class with Molly, reemphasizing the importance of this. That being said, I don't with the author saying that meetings should be avoided if possible. Face to face meetings are way better in my opinion. You can get a better feeling of what people are thinking, how they actually feel, and that human contact that people actually need
One difficulty with moving a face-to-face meeting to email, at least here at CMU for class group work, is losing the ability to look people in the eye and make sure they get information. Sending out an email with important information works, but only if everyone reads it and responds, if necessary. The comparison of a meeting to an accordion is a very good way of putting it. The same is also true for most work we do. Setting a specific time to finish it in and sticking to that keeps you from getting distracted because you have a deadline, which is apparently Parkinson's Law. I also found this fun variation, known as the Stock-Sanford Corollary: "If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do."
When I first read the title of this article my first thought was "DUH, organization is important". But the tips in here are actually helpful no jest for meetings but for everyday life. In conversations t make sure your speaking partner got what you said keep it short and sweet. Don't waste their time. As he said set your own deadlines sooner than those of upper management. I think its important that people learn the skills that make meets successful and apply them to other "departments" in their lives.
This article is not as descriptive as I would have hoped. As a stage manager I always strive to be extremely organized and efficient in meetings. If you do not go into the meeting with a set agenda in front of you then you can only really expect yourself to be mumbling and searching for the next thing that needs to be discussed- thus forth- wasting valuable time. As a leader of a meeting you also should be stopping people from going off track and interrupting those that are.Respect for the time of your co-workers could gain you more respect than you can imagine.
I think that many of these tips are good ones, but like many other articles here, i think the author is providing way too broad of advice. Like for larger department and group meetings, i find that spending a lot of time planning and releasing an agenda is good, but if its a one on one meeting, that would probably make it feel very impersonal. This advice also seems to very directly pertain to productivity meetings of sorts. I think in creative meetings, by very nature you need to take a different approach. When someone tries to impose too much structure on a creative meeting, it limits the creativity of those involved.
I agree with Kassondra and Camille that the post-meeting meeting is a problem here. I really like being able to have a meeting, even if, technically, an email chain could have sufficed. Meetings should be worth everyone's time, but I also think that it's important for members of a production to hear and be involved in things that may not technically be in their department. Often, particularly in our industry, there are solutions that may only involve, say, costumes and props, but scenery and sound could have valuable insight into different facets of the solution. Rachael and I were discussing this before our last production meeting, and we thought that our textbook "Does anyone else have anything for the room?" may be too closed off of a way to end a meeting, because it puts pressure on whoever wants to speak after that to make sure what they say is relevant to everyone there. Ultimately, I do agree that meetings should be "worth everyone's time", but I think that needs to come with the caveat that "worth" does not necessarily mean "direct involvement with".
The distribution of an agenda a couple days ahead of time is an excellent idea. It is definitely better to introduce meeting attendees to the topics to be discussed ahead of time so they have an idea of what they're getting into. I hate going to meetings and not knowing what I'm getting myself into. It also helps me pay attention to the parts that are pertinent to me and also encourages me to attend the meeting rather than just skipping out. Other than that, I found this article to be rather lacking. I wish it went more into detail about how to run a meeting.
I thought the article had some good points. Meetings are very important, but if you can get the same point across in an email or phone call, that is a lot more effective. People do not like to waste their time especially when they are very busy. Meetings need to be planned out ahead of time and run properly. Letting everyone know the agenda for the meeting ahead of time is very helpful because they can prepare what they need to share or show to everyone else. Meetings for a show need to be organized because a lot of departments have things to share and there often is not a lot of time to do it all. Planning a meeting can help everything run smoothly.
Like Joe, I too was hoping for some better tips. The structure of meetings that the author was talking about seems logical and if not, it has been reiterated in many similar articles, lectures, and classes everywhere.
One of the ideas that stuck with me though is that not everything has to be a face to face meeting but I wonder what the author thinks the limit is before a face to face meeting needs to happen. Personally, i like face to face meetings more. I am able to see that everyone understands what is happening and I can see people's emotions towards the topic. But I also can see the use in just sending out a few emails.
I think that this article is a great start to a conversation on how to organize an effective meetings. In tech management last week, we spoke about some concrete tips to run a production meeting, and I felt like this article was a great overview of what employing those techniques is meant to achieve. I have been to many a meeting where I left feeling confused about the next steps in a project or like my team had taken several steps back, so I think it is important for all of us to pay attention now to what has made meetings we've been to successes or failures.
Post a Comment