The Case For Shorter Meetings - Effective Use-Case Adoption

It has been six or seven (maybe more – who’s counting??) weeks now. The novelty of the no-commute commute has probably worn a little thin, and the realisation that remote working, like being in the office, can also be a little sucky. Look on social media and we still see the “25 ways to work effectively at home”, “previously_unknown_tool passes a quintillion users” or “The way of work changes forever” stories, usually from the supplier side of the IT Community. However, if you want to know what users really feel about the new world of work you have to dig deeper, a lot deeper.  But some feedback can be found and it does not to be as glowing as the advocates would like us to believe.  

So far, personal experience feedback has been mixed. I have to declare an interest here, I’m a huge Teams fan (other tools also available) but let me put that aside for a moment because it is less about the tool per se, more about how we’re expected to use them, or rather how we end up using them in absence of appropriate guidance.

Looking at some of the comments, “intense concentration wipes you out”, “ I groan when one of those invites drop-in”, “Hate them, always insist on a normal call”, “Back to handsets”. I’m sure you have your own view so feel free to share in the comments.

The one that struck hardest was how these meetings could have been emails. That’s when I realised these tools that were designed to make collaboration easy had become the mutant offspring of Email and Face to Face meetings. Somehow, we have managed to take a tool and way of working that was most preferred by all generations and turn it into the combination of the two least preferred ways of working for the majority of the workforce. But why is this?

The basic problem seems to be a massive repeat of the traditional way we tend to roll out applications and tools. These products have, and understandably under the circumstances, been rather rapidly rolled out. Some have had some training, others sort of picked it up as the went along. So now we have a real mismatch in the way the tools are being used and thus our, usually negative, impression of them.

Back to the email comment, because one of the benefits of collaboration tools is the reduction in and reliance upon email. Often, I hear customers tell me that email is the life-blood of their business only to talk to the users and discover email is actually more like the business’s cholesterol and not the good sort. So, to hear these tools compared to email, especially given my overwhelming positive opinion of these tools, tells me something is not right.

Looking through the feedback, it becomes clear that it is not the tools themselves but the way they are being used, or the way we think they should be used.

I remember one call I hosted which started on the hour. Enough of us were on the call at the required time so I started the meeting. We got everything sorted in 10 minutes so I thanked everybody and closed the call. Half an hour later I got hauled into my managers' office to find out what had happened to the call. Turned out the invite had been forwarded and re-forwarded, adding a couple of senior veeps to the attendee list. They had joined 15 minutes late and were not impressed by the absence of a call. Hence my appearance in the manager’s office. First time ever getting reprimanded for doing my job efficiently!!

At least with today’s tools, we can record the session and post the link so those unable to attend can catch up when convenient. But it is our behaviours that need to change. For example, if you need to be there, be there on time. If you do join late, don’t expect a personal catchup. How many times have we been on a call, the first latee arrives and the host gives them a summary, only to repeat themselves 30 seconds later when the next latee joins. So do one summary, ten or fifteen minutes in so everyone is on the same page.

And the small talk, get the business done first, then do the small talk. I overheard one call which took an hour and half of which the main business was discussed in the final 15 minutes of the call when there were only a few hardy souls left. Do the important stuff first then you have the rest of the call to talk about the small stuff. Oh, and make sure the meeting last 30 to 45 minutes tops. Nothing worse than joining your call early only to Zoombomb the previous call, which no doubt overran because of the small talk at the beginning and repeat summaries.

Unfortunately, the problem is that in the haste to make these tools available, little or no attention has been paid how these tools should be used in which circumstances. This has two consequences. Firstly, we end up using the tool in the way we think it should be used, trying to bend it to our traditional way of working. Secondly, we then stick to that small subset of features and functions we first learn. This means we end up utilising a small fraction of the capability of the tool. Consequently, and this is something I hear frequently from users, if we were shown how we were expected to use the tool, we could be much more productive.

This is where use case adoption comes in. Typically training provides a feature/function explanation of the tool. It may even include a crib sheet of useful key-strokes or short key combinations. However, when it comes to using, it is very much up to the user which feature/functions and in what sequence they do in order to perform a task. In contrast, Use-case based adoption takes all users through the same route to achieve a common task.

Take more effective meetings. It is not uncommon to have a regular monthly meeting to update the team on a particular activity, project, marketing campaign, new service development, sales etc. Often these may take a full day. During these meetings there will some actions that just seem to (for whatever reason) get rolled over to the next meeting. By the end of the monthly meeting, we may give a sigh of relief that thankfully that’s over for another month.

When deploying Teams, one of the first use cases I use is “More Effective Meetings”. The idea is very simple. Spend less time and achieve more in meetings. Yes, shorter, much shorter meetings, focussed, on-point and with only the people that really want to be there.  

The high-level view works like this. Use OneNote to store and notify the team about the meeting’s agenda. This means anyone in the team can see what will be discussed and when (important if not everybody needs to attend the entire meeting). Also, the agenda forms the template for the minutes. Record the meeting using Streams, one stream per agenda item. That way those unable to attend can catch up on what was actually discussed. Use the screen sharing to support any common artifacts that need to be reviewed, discussed or created. Use the Planner tool to create any agreed actions, who is responsible and when they need to complete them. The chat function can be used to capture any comments or, if the speaker is not taking questions, note any questions. Once the meeting is over, make the stream available complete the minutes and post on OneNote. Send a note on Teams thanking attendees and letting them know the minutes and other artifacts are available.

Not that radically different to your meetings today I expect.

However, now we can see who has what actions in a plan, which can be updated in real-time, visible to everyone in the team. So, after the first week, we can hold a short online review meeting to see where we are. Activities which look like they may slip can either be given a higher priority, more resource or even reassigned. This means there is more chance of catching and dealing with those “Roll-Over” activities. Plus, everybody starts conducting meetings in a similar way using the same tools.

However, the real value is time-saving. A full day monthly meeting may then be reduced to three weekly 30 minute updates and a 4-hour monthly meeting, meaning instead of 8 hours per person per attendee per month (net of admin/travel time), we only require 5.5 hours or a 30% saving. Multiply this by the cost per attendee and number of meetings, we should be able to not only have more effective meetings but also save time and money.

This is just one example. Some others can be found in my "Home Alone 2: Getting Stuff Done" Linkedin Post.

It looks like we have sleepwalked into the same old way of rolling out applications and trying to bend new tools to fit traditional behaviours, both of which adversely impacts our experience of remote working. Not what we wanted to achieve, especially given this will be the new normal as we expect to maintain this way of working once the lockdown is lifted.