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-----Original Message-----
From: Downing, David
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 10:55 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Meetings -- ARRGGHHH!!!
>I just got dragged into a meeting that I was told would last 15 minutes
>and went on for 45 because several people got hung up on one specific
>point, which didn't even concern me. I just read an article in that
same
>issue of INTERCOM about effective meetings, but nobody else seems to be
>aware of the principles discussed therein, or is unwilling to enforce
>them. The problem is, I wasn't in a position to do anything about it
>because I was an invited guest. What do you all do when you get into
>situations like that besides just grit your teeth?
At a former place, we actually started to enforce a formal process in
meetings where those kinds of "45 minute discussion on an issue" issues
would be noted and followed up on after the meeting or during a
different meeting. After about three grumble-filled document review
meetings where there was resistance against any new process, the
grumbling stopped and everyone else started doing the same thing in
their own meetings.
Project status meetings started taking about 10 minutes for all the
required attendees, with 10-15 minutes of discussion with a smaller
group. You were always welcome to stay and listen to the discussion or
go on your merry way. Man, was that nice.
- V
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