A Brilliant Idea to Make Meetings Better

Jeffrey Phillips, writing in his Thinking Faster Blog, has a great idea to make meetings better.  He calls it Just in Time Meeting Attendance:

Rather than show up for a meeting and sit through the entire thing, demand that the meeting have an agenda and that the facilitator or leader of the meeting stick as closely to the agenda as possible.  When the parts of the meeting you need or want to attend are complete, get up and leave.  I know this may sound a bit rude, but is it really worth your time and your sanity to simply continue to sit in meetings where stuff is being discussed that a) is not relevant for you b) you don't have anything to add to or c) you could care less about? 

Many of us stay in meetings where there's little left for us to do simply out of fear that leaving will be interpreted as lack of interest  or for fear we'll get assigned stuff if we are not there to defend our turf.  But that's not the best use of your time, now is it?

Imagine holding a meeting where the agenda was tight and you could enter or leave as you were needed.  Imagine being confident that you could enter a meeting 30 minutes after it started, show up just in time to deliver news or listen to the part of the meeting you needed to, and then leave when there was no real reason to remain.  That would be true just in time meeting attendance.

I absolutely love it!

Comments

[goodgord]

If you're intersted in taking it to a slightly more astral level, you should check out The Core, by Jim and Michele McCarthy (http://www.softwareforyourhead.com/) These guys got so fed up with poitnelss meetings that they propose mandating an operating system for people's heads consisting of a series of protocols that all meeting attendees have to adhere to.

I put it in that 'that's-so-crazy-it-just-might-work' category ;)

[Enrico Schaefer]

We did some meetings with the strict agenda approach. It worked well at first to get orgainzed and help with start-up. After a while, however, it really sucked the fun out of going to board meetings. There needs to be a hppy balance, and always a willingness to walk out when the time is no longer valuable.

[Dave!]

That is a good idea... *if* you had total buy in from everyone participating. Otherwise, you run the risk of alienating other people in the meeting, which is never good. I've worked in some environments where this would have gone over like a lead brick and possible earned you a reprimand. Caveat emptor.