Meeting Time

I think I face many of the same challenges of most Business Analysts; I always seem to have 2001 things on the go. Given a bit of spare time between those 2001 things, I started to think that there must be something I was doing that could be done better and would allow me to be more efficient. Hmmm... Couldn't I analyze my processes in the same manner that I do for the company that I work for?

The single largest consumer of my time is meetings. I can not stress how difficult it is to understand how the word meeting has more than just four letters! How many times have I come out of an hour long meeting thinking that was an hour I'll never get back? We spend so much time in meetings that it is difficult to fathom how any work is ever accomplished.

According to one of my Business Analyst idols, Ellen Gottesdiener, "The average person attends seven to ten meetings a week, half of which are unproductive, and the average meeting involves nine people...who have as little as two hours' prior notice."¹ If I could reduce the number of meetings I attended by eliminating the unproductive ones or even just turn those unproductive ones around, I'd be in a much better position.

Making meetings more productive would be a great start to increasing my ability to tackle my 2001 tasks. I realize that there are some necessary meetings but I was targeting the ones that just weren't productive. You know the ones, where a number of people express their thoughts and at the end of the meeting everyone looks at each other asking what the outcome was. I'm not against meetings, but I certainly don't like unproductive ones.

There were a number of areas which I felt could be addressed to make meetings more productive:

Make it standard practice to give as much notice as possible for every meeting. If people are allowed to prepare for meetings, their contribution is much more valuable and so is the outcome of the meetings. The concept is similar to a school test. How much better did the test go if you'd prepared for it? Although it didn't guarantee success, preparation usually had a significant impact on the result.
Agendas are mandatory! In order to adequately prepare for the meeting, attendees need to have a clear outline of what will be discussed. The agenda should clearly define the reason for the meeting and the expected outcome for the meeting.
Stay on target! Although other great ideas may come out of the meeting and may need to be adressed, it is imperative that the meeting stay focused on its goal. If it wasn't on the agenda, it shouldn't be a part of the meeting.
Minutes are also mandatory! I've gone to far too many meetings where participants argue for the first portion of the meeting over what was decided in the last meeting. One of my first BA courses discussed modeling and the difference between a formal and informal model. An informal model is one that is never documented, and if it's not documented what use does it serve? The same philosophy applies to meeting minutes in that if there is no need to document the meeting, is there really a need for the meeting?
Participants need to arrive on time and meetings ALWAYS start and end on time. For productive meetings, time management is critical. Never punish those that arrive on time by waiting for those that are late Attendees will soon learn that there is no point in arriving on time which only perpetuates the cycle.
Cell phones are turned off. Yep, not set to vibrate, but OFF. If the meeting was important enough to be called and everyone spent their time preparing for it, isn't it important enough that everyone devote their full attention to the meeting?
And my favourite rule... never meet unless you have to. If it's just an update, what about simply sending an e-mail? Meetings shouldn't occur just to fill time or to listen to someone talk.

These rules are helping me to work more efficiently. As with anything valuable in life, it isn't easy. I try to follow them as best I can, but sometimes you have to break your own rules. When your company CEO attends a meeting and their cell phone starts ringing, it's probably best that you don't ask them to leave.

Unproductive meetings frustrate me and take up too much of my time. I know that these meetings are just one piece in the puzzle that prevent me from being more productive, but every little bit helps. Now I only have 2000 things on the go!

¹Ellen Gottesdiener. Requirements by Collaboration: Workshops for Defining Needs, 2002. Boston: Addison-Wesley.