A lot of folk I speak with seem mighty pissed off these days. What about? The humble meeting, that’s what. I was running a workshop recently and the group got really animated about meetings. How poorly prepared, badly run, and terribly followed up they are. And don’t get us started on late arrivals.
One of the group suggested having meetings standing up. Keeps people on their toes (har har). These stand up meetings are usually short, and to the point. And there’s nothing wrong with that. So this morning I hopped onto Twitter and posed the question:
“Someone suggested running meetings with no chairs in the room as a way of getting stuff done quickly. What do you think?”
Good old Twitter – you’ll never let me down…
Callum Saunders loved the idea
Rob Jones suggested “sit down and focus”
Lara Newman told us that where she works they call the idea “The bird table”. I love that
Gary Smailes got in touch to say Tesco run meetings on their feet
Lord Manley suggested email as an alternative, is this a choice of two nightmares I wonder?
Jo McMahon likes stand up agile meetings – keep it brief and focussed
Green Contact likes 15 minute flash meetings – keep it sharp
Mr Airmiles has experience of stand up meetings – and he thinks they are great! He and I have previously spoken about desks that you can wind up and down to stand and sit at too.
Flora Marriott did the maths for us. stand up = definitely. Toyota might claim to have invented it, she adds.
And Greg Savage (yeah him again) popped by to share some great thinking around whether or not meetings should even take place.
I’ll be covering other aspects of the dreaded meeting soon. Meantime I love these suggestions – and I’d be keen to hear if other people have more to add.
Update: here is an interesting addition to the debate courtesy of Tobias Mayer over at Agile Anarchy. Don’t have meetings is his suggestion.