Conference 7.286::digital

    
    Re: .0
    
    We've been doing that in SETC for well over a year now.  It
    makes a big contribution not only to productivity during the
    meeting itself, but also after the fact because what the
    group is up to and who is doing what is much more clear.
    
    The third issue I would have a bit of trouble with.  The
    person who calls the meeting should not be singled out as
    solely responsible for its success.  It takes two or more
    to tango as they say.
    
    Steve
    

    
    Re: .0
    
    Sorry should have put this in the last reply.
    
    We have a brief bit of training and materials about having
    more effective meetings.  It's called MEETINGS THAT WORK.
    If anyone wants information send me mail offline.
    
    Steve
    

    My position on meetings:
    
    	If the meetings do not include the following they are worthless:
    
    	1) Agenda/Schedule
    
    	2) Employees that will do the final implementation of the solution
           and/or change.
    
    	3) Short/To the Point/Accountable Individuals/Due Dates
    
    	4) No Lip Service, Power Struggles,Turf Protecting,Company
           Politics and/or other 'Power Enhancing Advertisement' permitted.
    
    	5) Goal or Goals should be understood by all attending the meeting.
           Actions rather than words should be the driving force to assure
           that goal is accomplished within schedule and on budget.
    
    	6) Last: 'One action is worth 1,000 words.'   Management and
    	   employees involved should strive for 'modelling', that is
           actions (real data) should be the driving force of the meeting.
           Buzzwords and 'general advertisement' (lip service) should be
    	   avoided (abolished) from the meeting.

        Meetings should be for interaction and decision-making.

        Meetings should NOT be for information dissemination (unless
        the information is of such a nature that it cannot be
        communicated offline).

        Bob

A simple recipe for faster more productive meetings:

Take the chairs out of the conference rooms.

    
    Ah, the Queen Victoria method!
    
    -Ed
    

    Actually, *best* approach I've ever heard of for productive meetings
    was something a friend of mine did when they worked at Raytheon. All
    meetings (and that meant *all*) were scheduled for 5pm and after.
    People seemed to cut right to the heart of the issues every time....
    
    
    -HA

On the lighter side, the John Cleese video "Meetings, Bloody
Meetings," is both entertaining and useful.  It's available
through the Digital Library Network.

   Gary

    
    What I find frightening is that most of the folk who manage this great
    company of ours spend most of their time in meetings.  It makes me
    sick to think that they actually ENJOY their jobs and get paid more
    than ICs to do it.
    
    But, then again, most of the political schmoozing happens at meetings
    and, therefore, make them the best opportunity for career advancement.
    :-(
    
    -Ed
    

    Don't hold a meeting just because 'we always have a meeting at <time>
    on <day of the week/month>' -- i.e. meetings must be purpose driven,
    not habitual.

    Don't forget that Digital's COMPUTER CONFERENCES can take the
    place of many meetings!  Also in the Digital library, my master's
    thesis entitled "Computer Communication:  In the Boardroom Or on
    the Computer?" can provide some guidance. It is from July, 1988, 
    but the report really isn't really dated--just the author. ;-)
                                
    					- Anne Marie Brako

    	I didn't think you were still dating, Anne Marie. Boy, wait until I
    tell Richard!

    Re: .6 by THEBAY::CHABANED:
    
    >    Ah, the Queen Victoria method!
    
    Lets hope the meeting participants haven't learned how to sit without
    chairs, using the trick the soldiers of the Austrian Empress Eugenie
    are supposed to have used while resting on a muddy field between
    battles. 

    There should be a standard utility available in all meeting rooms.
    As you enter the meeting, you enter your hourly pay rate. The utility
    times the meeting and totes up the total cost at the end.  The total
    is announced and each participant must answer out loud:
    
    Were the decisions made and/or information exchanged in this meeting
    worth $nnnnn of Digital's money?

I hold staff meetings every week, at the same time each week.  There is rarely
a fixed agenda. Guest speakers are occaisonally invited to present.  I cover
operational and administrative issues, status of received work requests, and
latest rumours.  As a group we critique each other's work, and ask pointed
(sometimes very pointed) questions that cause the presenter to defend their
assumptions, methods, and results. Each member of the group has two or
three minutes to highlight their accomplishments of the past week, and outline
what they intend to accomplish in the coming week. 

The group has to share resources to be successful.  Each member of the
group routinely depends on the skills of others in the group to be successful.
The weekly staff ensures that resource issues are brought out on a regular
basis, and that each member of the group knows what skills others in the
group have to offer.

It is amazing the number of times that one group member has said "I'm stuck
because..." and another member will answer "Try this, that, or the other
thing", and sure enough, the problem gets fixed.

Some of the replies in this string imply that this type of meeting should
be cancelled as wasteful.  I disagree.  I think that this type of meeting
offers the following benefits:

	o it gives each member the chance to show off
	o it improves the quality of our work
	o it gives each member a chance to raise issues, express fears
	  and expect answers in an open, relaxed way
	o it allows members to share experience and plan resource sharing
	  without conflict (usually :))

From time to time, I've asked the group if the meetings should be cancelled
or the frequency of the meeting changed.  The answer has be consistently no.

I'd be interested in hearing other's opinions on the subject.

Regards,

Marc

    re .0:  It's very valuable to tell the person who called or was
    responsible for the meeting how well it worked or didn't.  That's
    not the same as blaming that person for a meeting that didn't work.
    The goal should be to help indentify ways to make the next meeting
    work -- or perhaps discover that it isn't needed at all.
    
    There are many different kinds of meetings -- some really should be
    help regularly.  E.g., I was once ran a series of twice weekly
    meetings!  But we were debugging a product, and the meetings had a
    very tight agenda:  look at each item on the bug list, confirm who
    is currently working on it and what has been done, check whether
    anyone has useful ideas or data about it, and get through it as fast
    as possible and get back to work.  We were at multiple sites, so we 
    teleconferenced, with the agenda going out in advance by email.  If 
    we'd all been at the same site, we probably could have done it with 
    just one meeting a week.  
    
    		Enjoy,
    		Larry

	... because you obviously have a close-knot team, and the agenda may
not be published, but once the team is together, there is one! And they help
create it.

    I am in the Digital Consulting group. We meet once
    a quarter. We use e-mail or the phone if necessary to 
    get answers. At our hourly rate, $160+, we help the company
    more by being out of the office and on site. This way we can help
    pay for all the overhead sitting around conference tables.
    
    			-Jim-

    For those of you who like lists of 7 things to do, here's one for
    effective meetings:
    
    1	Plan a process for your agenda item.  If it's going to require that
    	the group will deal with complexities (see items 5 and 6) then
    paper the wall or make sure there's at least a huge whiteboard and that
    the chairs if any are arranged so everyone can see what they're doing.
    
    2	Clear the decks, at least enough so people whose bodies are in the
    	room can apply their minds as well.  Joy or grief or anger, if
    unacknowledged, generate distracting self-talk.  And once a strong
    feeling is acknowledged it may be necessary to make a personal
    declaration of commitment, make a well-designed request, and/or
    generate a well formed promise to make this conversation complete.
    
    3	Get something to whom the participants share a commitment to the
    	fore.  If the group has previously had this conversation, it may be
    enough to simply remind them of what they are all "up to" in life.  But
    if they havn't, this can take time.  If you omit this step though, all
    the talk about accountability will probably fail to make a difference. 
    When the wheels fall off, this conversation may need renewal to allow
    people to trust in each other's common purpose enough to deliver.
    
    4	Generate possibilities.  Alex Osborn's "brainstorming" method has
    	become justly popular.  If it seems inadequate, there are more
    elaborate methods under the title "Synectics" or in various other books
    you can find.  The main thing here though is to make the possibilities
    *visible on the wall* if there are a lot of them.  Otherwise they'll
    just create a fog and people will feel they're getting nowhere.
    
    5	Apply criteria.  This, like step 3, is a likely suspect if things
    	are not happening.  When people know the possibility that was
    chosen for action was chosen without applying a sufficiently complete
    set of criteria, they realize the decision was jerry-built and are
    likely to follow through with minimal energy if at all.  If there are
    going to be a lot of criteria applied to test a lot of possibilities
    you'll need maybe a matrix on the wall or some other way to score
    things visually.  Stuart Pugh's "Total Design" (book) and Kepner &
    Tregoe's "The New Rational Manater" offer matrix methods you can use. 
    If you're setting direction for a new product, I recommend Quality
    Factor Development for this step (see Notesfile metoo::QFD.)
    
    6	List Actions on the wall or easel paper or overhead projector:
    
    	Who	Will do What				By When
    
    7	Figure out how the people who promised actions are going to have
    	reminders at the appropriate times, so they won't fail to deliver
    out of simple forgetfulness (or unconscious avoidance...)  And to whom
    can each promiser turn for coaching, if what he/she promised is in
    danger of not being delivered on time as promised?
    
    
    For many years I and others complained about meetings that did not work
    or were not productive.  Many of them were what I call "browsing"
    meetings--not that I'm against browsing, but since it calls for no
    structure to browse, it can go on too long and there's no real "meat"
    to the outcome.  And we've never given people instruction before in how
    to design effective conversations in meetings--we somehow expected them
    to just know, without instruction.
    
    Well, now you've been instructed.  You'll need to practice, practice,
    practice to become skilled at using all seven of these pieces as much
    and also as little (anything can be used to excess) as appropriate.
    
    One place I recommend you begin, if a lot of this is new to you:
    listen for complexity.  If you don't hear complexity, keep your chairs
    around the table and speak with each other.  If you hear complexity,
    turn your chairs to a wall and illustrate what's being spoken so you
    can use the pattern-recognizers at the ends of your optic nerves, not
    just the ones at the ends of your auditory nerves.
    
    
    Your meetings *can* work effectively toward what you're committed to
    contribute.
    							Russ

    
    Effective meetings are not rocket science.  It takes the
    intention and commitment to use the time wisely and then
    a structure.  The one suggested by Russ in .19 is a good
    one, but if you don't like that try another.  The key
    is to take the time to know why you are meeting, what you
    want as a result, and plan the meeting to produce that
    result.  IMO, the most common reason for ineffective
    meetings is the failure to do the this pre-meeting work
    that will enable all who attend do understand why they
    are there and how they are expected to participate.
    
    Re: taking out the chairs.
    
    This suggestion has been around for years.  Don't fall into the trap
    of thinking that because you "got right to it" and dispensed with the
    BS that you had an effective meeting.  You may have had a short meeting,
    but not necessarily one that produced a useful result.
    
    Steve
    

re .19: "Meating" Russ? I've been to some meetings that were meatings!
	But, no, I didn't overlook the intent of the content.

As an aside:

	Ever hear about the company who spent two days a week
	wondering why they were 40% behind schedule?

    I received from the IEEE an interesting book which seems very relevant
    to this thread:
    
    "Effective Meetings for Busy People"
    Let's Decide it and Go Home
    By William T. Carnes.
    ISBN: 0-87942-211-4
    
    IEEE Press
    345 East 47th Street.
    New York, NY 10017-2394
    
    IEEE order number: PC 02030.

>                       <<< Note 2744.19 by ICS::DOANE >>>
>                            -< 7 Pieces of Meating >-
>
>    6	List Actions on the wall or easel paper or overhead projector:
>    
>>>    	Who	Will do What				By When
>    
>    7	Figure out how the people who promised actions are going to have
>    	reminders at the appropriate times, so they won't fail to deliver

What's missing from the highlighted line above that can make step 7
partly moot is "to whom will this result be delivered or reported,"
or more shortly:

	Who	Will do What	For Whom			By When

This adds another active player to the list who can keep track of progress.
This is a natural activity, since the whole purpose of an action item is 
to serve some intermediate step so someone can continue work.

- tom]

   If this discussion keeps going much longer, Digital might decide to do
   a Six Sigma approach to World-Class Quality meetings as measured by a
   function-point application to intra-human interactions in a Supply-chain
   context, eliminating totally all redundancies in the process definition
   phase, resulting in a 1100 page tome to be delivered by the year 2000.
   Hopefully by then, Tom Peters should be out with "Excellence without
   Meetings". Then we can start all over again with MBLM, "Management By
   Lack of Meetings".
  
   :-) :-)

   Nari

	A number of years ago a parody note called  ALICE IN DIGITALand was
	posted here. Even today I have attended meetings where the culture
	of this story is alive and well. 

================================================================================
                           ALICE in DIGITALand


  "Where am  I?"  asked  Alice,  as she peered at the large 7-lettered sign
  with the standard blue letters.

  "You're in Digitaland,"  replied  the  security  guard,  "May  I see your
  badge?"

  "I don't have a badge."

  "Did you lose it?"

  "No." answered Alice in  a  puzzled  tone.  "How could I lose something I
  never had?"

  "If it's not lost then you must show it to me."

  "I can't.  I don't have one."

  "Then you'll have to have a temporary."

  "A temporary what?" asked Alice, more confused then ever.

  "A temporary Badge.  What's your badge number?" requested the guard.

  "I don't have one"

  "Of course not, Ken Olsen has 1.  Give me  your  badge  number,  and your
  cost center"

  "I'm so confused.  I can't do this. I've already said 3  times why.  Do I
  have to tell you 4?"

  "Ahhh.  3XY, badge number 4.    You  must  be very important to have such
  a low badge number.  I should have immediately recognized how low by your
  state of extreme confusion. Here's your temporary.  Go right on in."

  Alice pasted the sticky paper to her dress and headed down the hall.  Not
  10 feet ahead she saw a rather distressed looking  rabbit  coming  toward
  her.   He was dressed in a pair of torn,  faded  jeans,  and  a dirty tee
  shirt.  

  "What's wrong?" Alice asked.

  "I'm late!  I'm late!" exclaimed the rabbit as he peered at the pert chart    
  dangling from his pocket protector.

  "Late for what?" asked Alice.

  "My date.  I'm going to miss my date.  I've got  a  deadline  to meet and
  I'm not going to make it."

  "Well,  if  it's  already dead, it probably won't mind.  In fact it  isn't
  likely  to be going too far in such a state.  I'm sure that however  long
  you take will be just fine."

  "You obviously don't understand.  Everything  takes longer than it really
  does.  It  doesn't  matter  what  you  are doing, only that you meet your
  date, and that's always impossible."

  "Well if its impossible, why  would anyone expect you to meet it?" Almost
  at once regretting that she had  asked.    Was  this  was  going to be as
  confusing as badges?

  "Its really very simple.  In order to move forward, you need a goal.  Any
  goal will  do.    It  just  has  to be impossible to do.  To motivate the
  troops, you have  to  make goals very challenging.  Its really only there
  to get a stake  in  the  ground,  you  know.  After that we march in step
  until we reach our objective.    The  date  really doesn't mean anything.
  You simple have to understand that we are going to do the right thing."

  "But  the if the goal is impossible, and really doesn't mean anything why
  are you trying to go there.   Wouldn't it be simpler to first figure out
  what you are really going to do, then figure out how to get there?"

  "You obviously don't understand the process.   And  as  I said before I'm
  late so there is obviously only one thing to do."

  "Hurry up and rush off?" Alice asked, hoping it  would  sound more like a
  suggestion than a question.

  "No.  No.  No.  A meeting.  Let find  the  Mad  Manager  and  a number of
  involved, interested, or warm bodies."

  "That will obviously take a lot of time.  I don't think  you  have any to
  waste.

  "No it won't.  All we have to do is find a conference  room.    There are
  lots of them right over here."

  "But,"  started  Alice,  "those rooms are all full of people.  Don't we
  need an empty conference room?"

  "Silly thought.   If  we  want to find the Mad Manager and some meeting
  attendees, why would we  look  in  an empty conference room?  Anyway, its
  impossible to ever find an empty conference room."

  The rabbit took Alice by  the  hand,  and  promptly  lead  her  into  the
  largest,  fullest conference room.  Alice  immediately  noticed  that  the
  wastebasket was quite full of foam cups,  and  overhead  projector bulbs.
  These people had obviously been here for a long time.

  At the head of the table sat a  man  with  a  rather funny suit wearing a
  large hat.

  "Why" whispered Alice to the rabbit, "is that man wearing that funny hat?
  Who is he?"

  "I'm  the  Mad  Manager,"  answered  the  man  at the end of  the  table,
  obviously  overhearing the question, " And I'll be happy to tell you  why
  I'm wearing this Hat, but that topic is not on the agenda."

  "Why don't we change the agenda?" asked a person in the corner.

  "Is that a topic for another meeting?" replied the manager.

  "Is  what  a topic for another meeting?" voiced a third.  "The reason for
  the hat, or why we don't change the agenda?"

  "Why don't we take this off line?" queried another.

  "Does everyone  agree that these are all topics we should address?" asked
  the mad manager.

  "Possibly so.  " injected the person in the corner.  "Could it be that we
  have a hidden agenda?"

  "Oh no!" the Mad  Manager began, the dismay obvious on his face, "someone
  has hidden the agenda again!  Let me put on my process hat and we'll see
  if we can work this issue."

  With that, he removed his rather  amusing  top hat, and place a big green
  fedora on his head.

  "Now, with my process hat on, I'd like to address the issue of the hidden
  agenda.  Since we can't have a productive meeting without an agenda, it
  is up to all of us to find it."

  "But, " a voice from the corner piped in,  "who  is  going  to drive this
  issue?"

  "Do we have an action item here?" asked another attendee.

  "Does anyone here want to work this?" asked the mad manager.

  "Who originally brought this up?" asked another.

  "I  believe that the woman who came in with the  rabbit  proposed  this.
  Shouldn't she own it?"

  "Well" the Manager stated, pointing to Alice.  "I'd say that this is your
  issue."

  "What  issue.    I  don't  have  any issues.  " retorted Alice, nervously
  fingering her temporary badge. "I only posed a simple question."

  "I'm not  sure  we  can  accept  that," the manager declared.  "We need a
  date."

  "But, " Alice began,  remembering what the rabbit told her about dates,
  "a date is impossible."

  From the back of the  room  another  voice asked, "How about a date for a
  date?"

  "The least we can ask it that you give us a date when you will be able to
  give us the date for the date."  stated the person in the corner.

  "I'm not sure I can do  that," Alice opened, "since I don't know what I'm
  supposed to give you a date for.    I'm having a problem trying to figure
  out what you want me to do."

  "We don't have any problems here, only opportunities!"  Piped a chorus of
  voices.

  "It's  really  quite  obvious,"  the mad manager declared as  he  reached
  behind him for a striped blue and gray beret, "let  me  put on my Digital
  hat  for a moment," he continued doffing the fedora and flipping  on  his
  latest selection, "You must do the right thing."

  "Yes. yes. " chimed the chorus of attendees, "Do the right thing.

  "Now,  who  is  keeping the minutes?" the manager asked as he pitched the
  beret  and  placed the fedora back on his head.  "We need to record  this
  action item so we can come back to it later."

  "We obviously can't  deal  with  this  issue until we can determine whose
  meeting this is?" 

  "Should we schedule some time to  cover  that  topic?"  asked  one of the
  attendees.

  "Whose going to drive this?" asked another.

  Just at the Mad Manager was pulling  out  a  rather  worn  pith helmet, a
  voice in the back suggested "Let's take a break and work some of this 1x1
  off line"

  Being closest to the door Alice was the first  to  leave.    She  quickly
  dashed  down  the  hall,  and  ran  up  the first flight  of  stairs  she
  encountered, relieved to be free of the madness.

  When  she  opened the door the scene that confronted her made her wonder if
  returning to  the  meeting wasn't a bad idea.  Seated around a large oval
  table were what  appeared  to be playing cards, each dressed in a gray or
  navy blue three piece  suit.   Around each neck was a rather oddly shaped
  handle (or were they nooses?) made of silk, or polyester.

  "Off with her head!" screamed the queen of hearts who was  sitting at the
  head of the table.  Alice noticed that her tie was silk,  and  each  card
  seated  near  her  was dressed in a suit and noose combination similar to
  the queen's.

  "Why would you want to remove my head?" Alice asked.  By now she was 
  feeling beyond confused.

  "It's  not  a  modern,  iconic,  user  friendly, menu driven,  color,  PC
  compatible user interface," replied the queen, in a tone that  would need
  to come up two notches to be vaguely considered condescending.

  "It happens to suit me just fine," retorted Alice.

  "What are you an engineer or something?" asked the 7 of spades.

  "No, I'm Alice.  Who are you?"  

  "Marketing." they replied in perfect fifty-two part harmony.

  "And what is that?" asked Alice.

  There was a brief interlude of silence as each of the cards fidgeted with
  their ties, checked their watches  and  scribbled  notes  on  the pads of
  paper contained in a handsome genuine  imitation  leather folder embossed
  with the company logo.  Then one  by  one,  as  dominoes  would  do, they
  turned to the person on the left until  they  all  stared at the queen of
  hearts.

  The queen  cleared  her throat, adjusted her tie a second time and stared
  directly at Alice.   "We provide the strategic thinking necessary to grow
  the business."  

  "Oh," said Alice, "you figure out what products to build!"

  "Heavens, no!" exclaimed the Queen, "That's too tactical.  We feel its our
  job to develop the vision for the long term."

  "You develop things," began Alice, "so you build the products?"

  In unison each member of the table made a face reminiscent of the look a
  small child gets upon tasting spoiled dead roaches for the first time.

  "Uggggh, that's even more tactical," jeered the chorus.

  "No!  No!" shouted the Queen.  "You still do not understand.  We take the
  pulse of the key market leaders demand curve."

  "I see now." said Alice, "You sell the products."

  By  now the chorus of  cards  chanting  "Tac-ti-cal!    Tac-ti-cal!"  was
  becoming too much.  

  The queen was furious and repeated her  original greeting.  "Off with her
  head!  Off With her head"

  "WAIT!" demanded Alice.  "I believe I understand.  You are all responsible
  for  driving  the  solution  opportunities  for  the  key  client  supply
  perceptions  through  strategic vision management!" 

  Alice wondered if she should  add something about the claws catching, and
  frumious bandersnatches and thought that she'd  best  leave  it  at  that
  before she became ill.

  "Yes," screamed the cards, "That's exactly right!"

  "And how, might I ask, do you accomplish these lofty and important goals?"

  "By calling a BOD," the queen responded.

  "And what, pray tell, might that be?"  inquired  Alice  as she looked for
  the quickest escape route, hoping that this jabber  would  keep  her head
  attached long enough to get out.

  "A Board of Directors", began the queen, just as Alice  noticed  the door
  to the left of the table.  "Its a type of high level meeting."

  "A meeting????!!!!" exclaimed Alice.  "Not  another  meeting!"  With that
  she bolted for the door, no longer  fearing  for her head.  Her only hope
  was that she make it through before the  agenda  hit the overhead.  In a
  dead run, she passed through the door just as  the projector lamp flicked
  on.  The sound of the fan was the last sound to fade as the door closed.

  Breathlessly she looked up to see a large open area.  Directly in front of
  her was an enclosed area lined on one side with triple  chrome  table.  A
  stack of plastic trays was at the foyer.

  As she wandered through an assortment of sandwiches, prepared foods,
  soft drinks and  salad began their daily spiel.  "Eat Me!  Drink Me!  Eat
  Me!"

  "Oh no," answered Alice,  "I may know nothing about dates, and problems and
  meetings and agendas, and marketing  and badges, but I do know food.  I'm
  not gonna touch any of you.   After the morning I've had I deserve a nice
  cheese steak (no lettuce)!"

  With that, Alice opened the  nearest  exit  door  and left.  A resounding
  high pitched whine sang its midday good-byes as Alice returned to the real
  world.