What makes a weekly work meeting worth your time?

MrRockliffe

MrRockliffe

MrRockliffe

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Hi all

Like many of you I'm sure, I have weekly meetings with my team to discuss blockers/progress/updates on our respective business areas.


However, I'm getting the feeling that people don't find it worth their time - any opportunity to cut it short/cancel it is taken, which I do understand. I think it needs a revamp, so we're not running a meeting for the sake of having one.



So my question to you is, what has worked for your team? Was there anything you started/stopped doing which made it more interesting? What would you want to see your meeting structured like?




For context, it's a sales-based team, working in a single segment but different routes to market/client types, so we all share similar interests in the product/area.



Cheers
 
I have a similar fortnightly meeting, frankly nothing is done or said that couldn't be done in a teams meeting. Sadly for me, I think they're pointless because they are.

Maybe first work out if it really needs to be done rather than trying to fix it.
 
ChroniC said:
I have a similar fortnightly meeting, frankly nothing is done or said that couldn't be done in a teams meeting. Sadly for me, I think they're pointless because they are.

Maybe first work out if it really needs to be done rather than trying to fix it.
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It's easy to argue either side.

The point I've made with the team boss, which he agrees with, is that it's good to have regular catch ups with your team when working remote.


For example, in a team of 10, I've actually only met a single person, in-person.


We've tried the approach of just getting people to post updates/requests in our chat, but people just don't do it - this gives me the impression they're becoming detached from the team, as over time, the interaction levels drop quite quickly and significantly.
 
I think a lack of communication or general updates within a team will be more problematic over time than everyone saving 30mins of their time every/other week.
As above in todays hybrid working it’s important to have a regular catch up with people.
 
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Ahh the amount of meetings that drag on with irrelevant topics / discussions. If people aren't engaged in meetings then it's highly likely because it's not relevant enough to their day job to have been a meeting in the first place. If it's important to the job they do then you'll find people pay a lot more attention and engage a lot more. I'm sure we've all been in meetings where we've spent ages and come away with very little and thought hmm.... if only that was an email.

Keep meetings short and sharp and to the point. The last corporate company I worked for would always overrun on meetings. It ****** everyone off.
 
chroniclard said:
Going off in tangents that end up wasting an extra 20 minutes just waste people's time. Otherwise ours are fine.
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This x 100. They need to be ruthlessly chaired or you just get the same old people spouting off about the same old things - especially true with a diverse audience ie. it's not really one team, it's lots of smaller different ones

What makes them worthwhile is getting useful information you didn't know before, getting insight into how the most senior managers interpret company strategy so you get a better view of where you and your efforts fit in

I always like a bit of gossip as well - humanises the whole meeting
 
MrRockliffe said:
It's easy to argue either side.

The point I've made with the team boss, which he agrees with, is that it's good to have regular catch ups with your team when working remote.


For example, in a team of 10, I've actually only met a single person, in-person.


We've tried the approach of just getting people to post updates/requests in our chat, but people just don't do it - this gives me the impression they're becoming detached from the team, as over time, the interaction levels drop quite quickly and significantly.
Click to expand...

From a team engagement point of view, we have a half hour teams meeting every week where work talk is strictly off limits. We’ll just waffle on about what we’ve been up to at the weekend, hobbies etc and it’s been a good way to get to know some of the new starters etc. It’s intended to replace those informal discussions that would normally have happened over the desks when we were all in the office.
 
The meeting needs to have a purpose, someone accountable for running it, specific actions and updates. People can email their update in advance of the call. But if no email update received then they need to join the call. Keep the call short and succinct. Always send minutes after the call so everyone is aware of the status of all points discussed and any outstanding actions on them. If there is insufficient to discuss in the call then reduce the frequency to fortnightly or monthly. Once a call is no longer useful at all then stop holding it.
 
MrRockliffe said:
Hi all

Like many of you I'm sure, I have weekly meetings with my team to discuss blockers/progress/updates on our respective business areas.


However, I'm getting the feeling that people don't find it worth their time - any opportunity to cut it short/cancel it is taken, which I do understand. I think it needs a revamp, so we're not running a meeting for the sake of having one.



So my question to you is, what has worked for your team? Was there anything you started/stopped doing which made it more interesting? What would you want to see your meeting structured like?




For context, it's a sales-based team, working in a single segment but different routes to market/client types, so we all share similar interests in the product/area.



Cheers
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Personally. I would ask each staff member who is present at said meeting to provide feedback based on what they feel is necessary to cover in the meeting. They know best what they need to know and what is irrelevant information.

Could it be possible to present the information in the meeting in an email? and perhaps move over to a monthly meeting to discuss what actions have been taken regarding different elements of those emails?
 
Theres no great way to do weekly catchups, they always feel like a bit of a waste of time. The problem is being able to talk to our colleagues about what your doing and gain their insight can, occasionally, be really useful.

Ive seen and done slightly different things in the past, from daily stand ups (in person or via slack) to weekly 'problems, plans and progress' reports to your manager and team which are rolled up through the company.

Ultimately team collaboration is hard to force, and trying to formalise it is always going to be painful, i'd suggest that if its actually useful to anyone to keep doing it, but keep it short & if it's not then to try and do it via other means.
 
Assuming that there are actually enough updates happening in the team to fill the allocated time (I've worked in teams where everyone was just going through the motions, so any recurring meetings were 100% a waste of time), I think the deciding factor regarding how successful / worthwhile the meetings will be is having a good chairperson to set the agenda, lead the meeting etc. If no one is taking the bull by the horns and finding ways to make the meeting worthwhile, then it probably won't be worthwhile.
 
Have an agenda and try and stick to it on as short a timescale as possible. As @chroniclard said, the problem with some meetings is that people go off on tangents so whoever is taking lead on the meeting should be brave enough to get it back on track. If people are losing interest, they'll likely just be doing work in the background anyway, or watching Netflix :D
 
Ours go quite well mostly, some tangents but they are normally cut off pretty quickly. Normally we have a Friday meeting but there is a more general one on a Wednesday that I'm not usually involved in. Quite often the Wednesday meeting is where issues are discusses and the friday one is where we try to allocate people to finding solutions.

We have a kind of ongoing "to do" list where things that have been suggested in the past are checked up on for progress, things that have been implemented are reviewed so we get to hear how the changes are going.

I just cant be bothered with the meetings for meetings sake type but fortunately I think we have outgrown that lot, you know "I have a broken eyelash and we need to have a meeting about it".
 
Ours were on a Monday morning and e would generally discuss plans for the week, rather than refer to loads of different diaries it gave trainees a chance to jump on a piece of work.
There was also a recap of the weekend for those on call so it was a quicker way of getting the points across rather than waiting for the file minutes.

It also gave me extra 30min nap when we worked from home so was very much in favour of them.
 
What normally happens at are place is management have a meeting and changes things and us normal workers that wasn't included in these said meetings are expected to be mind readers and know what beened changed
 
Nothing is said or done that couldn’t be put in an email. Every single one of our meetings is pointless. I only hold my own teams meeting because it’s expected and I try where I can to keep an open discussion.
 
As devs we work in sprints (2 weeks) and have a retrospective meeting at the end to pat ourselves on the back or have a productive moan. It usually feels very productive and useful, we're pretty much all on the same page and it gives us a chance to agree on process to make working with each other & other teams more effectively. Especially as we're working on a greenfield project and there's plenty of unknown and iteration involved.

We also have regular planning meetings for assesing the effort needed for future tasks and it givers us a collective opportunity to spot any potential issues and ask questions so when we come to the task it should go smoothly for the individual. Those can sometimes be obstructive and interrupt my flow on top of my own procrastination, however they are effective.
 
MrRockliffe said:
It's easy to argue either side.

The point I've made with the team boss, which he agrees with, is that it's good to have regular catch ups with your team when working remote.


For example, in a team of 10, I've actually only met a single person, in-person.
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Why can't this be done in a face to face Video chat / Teams / Zoom meeting though.
What benefit is there from communicating the same thing to myself or management that required a 30min drive, getting up earlier. Paying for lunch and parking etc.

My position could be entirely different but unless I physically need to be teaching someone with physical objects, then I think it can be done online..

Hate to put it to you but most people (imo of course) couldn't give a rats ass about their fellow employees. Just get the work done as efficiently and as cheaply as possible.
 
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