EPISODE 029 - Organisation: Why are meetings often a waste of time?

Michael Seidl: Welcome to a new episode of the Get Shit Done in IT podcast. My name is Michael Seidel and our topic of the day is why are meetings often a waste of time? So who doesn't know the phrase this meeting could have been an email or so on. So today we talk about things to improve your meetings, to maybe reduce your meetings, to reduce the time in meetings. So I have three points I want to talk about. And so let's go. So the first one is how to improve efficiency of meetings. And I think a very easy rule and easy answer of this question, but very often not done is to make clear what topics are we talking about in this meeting and what is the expected outcome of this meeting. And that needs to be be defined before the meeting starts. Because if you define it during the meeting, you maybe see that you invited the wrong people. Maybe you haven't prepared enough topics. So make clear at the beginning before the meeting starts that everyone knows what topic it is and what the outcome should be. also only invite people that can help for this. topic and for this outcome. It doesn't make sense to introduce a lot of people just to listen to something because that doesn't make sense. You can send them an overview after the meeting. Those people can read through, but it doesn't make sense to invite people just to listen to any topics and not to participate in that thing. The next one is what alternatives do we have instead of meetings? So instead of a meeting, you can, of course, write the information via an email. If you have just a short question, you can ask them over Teams. But mostly those things are good when a meeting is not to discuss anything and find a solution. But when you have meetings just to spread some information, you should not do a meeting.

Michael Seidl: Not so often. Maybe it depends. But just to spread some information, to spread a new update, new news, maybe new employees coming or whatever, any internal information, write an email, send a Teams update. You have a channel to post an update. Maybe you have an internal podcast to spread those information. You have an internal intranet solution to spread some information. think in most cases it doesn't make sense to invite people to a meeting just to spread some information. Otherwise, you're planning to discuss any topics around that thing, but just to spread information, no meeting is needed. The third question is or the third advice is how to prioritize your people attending the meetings. So as an appointment sender, should really, back to the first step, define what the topic is. And on top of that, you should know who is needed for the meeting. So only invite people who can help you with the topic, who can help you to get the outcome you are trying to get. as an invite... in invite someone who got invited to a meeting. You should have the guts and maybe it's a little bit difficult than it is to say, maybe you should try it in a nice way, but you should have the guts to ask the invite, what is my role? What should I do? And what is the expectation of being there? And if there is no clear answer, or maybe it's just telling you, should listen, maybe there is something for you, then I think it's okay to maybe decline the invitation or at least to say maybe I don't have to be part of the meeting the whole time. You can just...

Michael Seidl: Drop me in for the one part you need me and then I can drop out so I can focus back on my daily business and do not sit an hour or two or whatever in a meeting and only participate for 10 or 15 minutes. So as an invite in inviter, make sure you only invite persons who really can help you with the topic and the outcome. And as someone who gets invited to an appointment, a meeting ask yourself the question what is your role ask the who invites you ask the person what is your role what is the expectation and if you don't see the need to attend the whole meeting you should agree to only attend for the part you will be needed and one more thing so I have a plus so we have three plus one Usually when you send a meeting, it's always half an hour, an hour, two hours, four hours, maybe a day. So there is no rule. There is no law. There is nothing like this that tells you that a meeting has to be two hours. There isn't. I haven't seen it. Trust me, there isn't any rule, any law, anything like this that a meeting has to be two hours. Okay. So usually when you create an appointment in Outlook, so Yeah, the Microsoft world, at least I live in the Microsoft world in Outlook. So when you create an appointment, I think it's at least one half an hour and all the steps to increase it. It's in half an hour step. So one hour, one and a half, two hours and so on. But there is no rule that a meeting has to be that long. So it is absolutely okay to have a meeting only for 10 minutes, 50 minutes, 20 minutes, 12 minutes. So you can do it. Yeah, you have to do some more clicks. Yeah, because Outlook only increases by half, but by 30 minutes. But you can do it. You will not go to jail or something like this. So you can do meetings beside the usual time slots or time values. And when you remind...

Michael Seidl: yourself on step one to define what the topic is, to define the outcome, then it should be an easy step to define how long do we take for this. Okay. So what I see in long meetings, for example, two hour meetings or one hour meetings, that people are trying to extend the topics, the talk to that time. But it's not necessary. So if you give people a room of two hours, they will fill the room, the time slot, with two hours discussion, whatever. And maybe at the end, they will hurry to a result, to a resolution. If you do a shorter meeting, they have the pressure to maybe focus on the outcome first. And maybe if there is some more time, they can do some small talks. They can close the meeting. or just on time and everything is good. So for small talks and for anything else, you can do it in the coffee bar in the lunch break, whatever. But the meeting with a lot of people waste using their time, you skip the small talk and start to make sure you get the outcome, what is defined in the meeting. Okay. So with that said, maybe you let me know your ideas to improve meetings productivity meetings efficiency and so i wish you a happy monday i wish you a happy week stay productive and bye