Comments on: A Few Rants on Meeting Etiquette

By: QAspire - Quality, Management, Leadership & Life! » 25 Lessons Learnt on Conducting Productive Meetings

Fri, 29 May 2009 09:09:16 +0000

[...] Bringing laptop/mobile phones in a meeting means you have enough to distract you from the core agenda. That’s what Johanna Rothman also has in her meeting rule book. [...]

By: Chris Kauffman

Chris Kauffman — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:41:22 +0000

I spend a fair amount of my time in standing (recurring and seated) meetings. Yesterday, I was in a meeting for a project that is making progress but is about 6 months behind schedule. We have this status meeting every two weeks to discuss the same interdepartmental issues with scheduling work around one group’s vacation time. I finished 3 scripts for one of the main web apps remaining in this project while participating in this meeting.

Had laptops been disallowed, I would still be trying to find time to finish those apps. Good meeting facilitation with agendas increase participation. Just like Inbox Zero for email management, some meeting questions can be answered immediately by people using those electronic devices.

By: Jim Ward

Jim Ward — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:48:04 +0000

Last night I attended a speech where the topic was multi-tasking in meetings. The message was, it’s here to stay, get used to it and manage it. Particularly in virtual meetings, conference calls, etc., most people are doing something other than being fully engaged. The message was that most people in most meetings don’t need to be fully engaged most of the time. Encourage them to multi-task during these times, and then get their attention when you need it. Nothing was said about the cost of context-switching. Turns out the guy was trying to sell us meeting management software.

By: Jim Ward

Jim Ward — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:02:22 +0000

I think your second points may be symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself. Too many meetings that are irrelevant to too many of the attendees. I everyone in the meeting is involved and engaged, the other problems will disappear.

By: abby, the hacker chick blog

abby, the hacker chick blog — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:13:21 +0000

hah! Okay, I’m sure this is TMI, but you reminded me of it, so here goes…

In the bathrooms at one of my customer sites, I noticed there were signs reminding people to please flush the toilet when they were done. What?! I laughed, these are professional people working here, how could they possibly need a sign to remember to flush?

It turned out that they were SO busy they couldn’t put their cell phones down even when they went in the bathroom and they weren’t flushing so the caller wouldn’t hear.

Okay, now seriously, that is just TOO busy, if you ask me.

(totally agree on the meeting etiquette rants, BTW – but, seriously Johanna, I know you can do a better “rant” then this ;-) )

By: Liz

Liz — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:24:22 +0000

So with you on the cell in the bathroom thing. ICK!

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:56:09 +0000

I guess I want to add one final thought on your notes. As a meeting participant, I would be truly mortified to have to have someone tell me to turn off my phone (or other noise-maker). We should never have to be told to not be disruptive in a meeting. It’s not rocket science to learn how to disable the ringer on a phone.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:49:15 +0000

I have one suggestion to add to the list, the most screamingly obvious one. So obvious that no one says it.

“Be Early!” A 9am meeting does not mean you walk in the door at 9am, it means you should be READY for business at 9am. If you take three or four minutes to settle in, get your pad out, write the heading of the meeting on your note pad, great, be there at 8:56!

A corollary to that is, don’t plan to arrive at a 9am meeting with a minute to spare, you’ll never do it. You’ll always get caught in the hall. The more important you are, the more likely you’ll get tagged and delayed.

Thanks for your excellent suggestions.