How Top Companies are Leaving Traditional Meetings Behind
Why Companies are Rethinking the Way They Run #Meetings.
In the last few months, companies have taken the step to reduce the number of meetings they have. As difficult as it seems, this decision reflects on how meetings are holding teams and companies back from scaling. The truth is that people need time to work and get things done. At the start of 2023, Shopify made the decision to cancel all recurring meetings with more than three people. Buffer, a social media management company, practices asynchronous communication and tries to minimize meetings. Zapier, a remote-focused company, promotes a “remote-first” culture that reduces the number of meetings to allow employees to have focused work time and achieve a healthy work-life balance. Basecamp is a software development company known for its “less-meeting” philosophy. These are just a few examples of organizations that have not only realized how meetings were affecting the organization but also took the effort to change and improve.
Asynchronous meetings are now more critical than ever for companies trying to grow and build a culture that truly adapts to today’s collaborative teams. So, we made a list of a few types of meetings that can successfully move to asynchronous formats without jeopardizing collaboration, decision-making, or team engagement — because moving forward doesn’t always mean that you have to meet.
Async Stand-ups
Async stand-ups help you stay connected, informed, and spot potential blockers for the team.?
Daily stand-up meetings can easily be moved to an automatic message on @Slack, where team members need to share “What are you doing today,” “yesterday’s accomplishments,” “blockers,” and reminders (remind team members that you are waiting for them if you are waiting for something).
You can also transition to weekly stand-up meetings in a more visual format, like an async session where team members can visualize what’s happening on a whiteboard or the session below, where team members are asked typical stand-up questions, and they can add their sticky notes or notes in a more linear format.?
These last two options can be easily scheduled and assigned, so team members get notified when they have to participate, and the leader gets notified to facilitate conversations, answer questions or address blockers for the team. The cool thing here is that while people get to do this on their time without “taking their energy” or focus away from their work, the space remains highly collaborative.?
You can see everyone’s cursors, and everyone is held accountable for participating.
New proposals
When a team member shares a new proposal, epic, idea, or project with the team, multiple team members are usually invited to the meeting, making it costly in terms of time.?
The problem many teams encounter with this type of meeting is that the person sharing their new proposal (epic, idea, design, strategy, etc.) only hears feedback from the loudest voices in the room, and the input is usually superficial. This is not a problem with how the team is approaching the meeting but rather with the format of the meeting.?
Firstly, people need time to digest new ideas and proposals. Secondly, sometimes the person leading the meeting ends it by asking, “any questions, comments, concerns?” instead of being very clear about what they need from all the collaborators and asking direct questions to elicit input that will help them move forward.
Moving new proposal meetings to asynchronous formats is highly recommended, as organizations using this approach have seen immediate positive results and have reduced the amount of time spent on meetings on a weekly basis. In this category, we recommend thinking about:
a) New proposal meetings where a team member shares a new idea, proposal, or epic with the team to get their buy-in and some initial feedback.
b) Feedback Session: When a team member or multiple team members want to gather feedback and input about a new proposal, idea, design, epic, etc., to evaluate risks, ensure all requirements are met, and overall explore potential considerations that other team members or stakeholders could bring up and could be important for the next phases of the project.
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c) Approval session: When the team shares a proposal, idea, epic, design, or new strategy with the purpose of getting it approved.
Pre-meeting Sessions
We often want to enter a meeting fully prepared, with a clear understanding of the questions and concerns the team will bring, so we can effectively utilize that meeting to present multiple proposals, negotiate, and discuss potential solutions. We acknowledge that certain commitments must be made collectively as a team. Pre-meeting sessions play a pivotal role in achieving this objective.
These async sessions help teams share information about the meeting’s topic in advance, allowing them to ask initial questions to gauge challenges and identify additional considerations. Consequently, when the team convenes, the session leader got all the necessary information to delve deep into the topic and facilitate decision-making. This approach is highly recommended, especially when a team, or even a team along with the client, has multiple meetings where new requirements and concerns emerge, requiring further investigation and subsequent follow-up discussions and meetings — turning want you thought was going to be one discussion into a month-long discussion.?
Moreover, pre-meeting sessions contribute to ensuring that everyone comes to the meeting well-prepared, fostering increased engagement. Participants become enthusiastic knowing that meetings are goal-oriented and more likely to yield fruitful results.
What if you could increase the rate at which meetings end with successful outcomes and decisions, reducing the number of meetings required by half compared to what you have today?
For more tips, contact our team, follow our blog here, or start your first pre-meeting session with Nova.
Team Retrospectives
Team retrospectives can help teams connect, evaluate the things they have done, and identify opportunities for improvement. These meetings provide everyone with the chance to voice their feedback from their unique perspective, making it easier for them to handle their day-to-day tasks in the future.?
They promote transparency and allow teams to continuously enhance their processes based on their experiences and needs.
While team building components can be included in these meetings, it often makes more sense to conduct them asynchronously, especially since team members may already have numerous meetings together. As with the team retro, these meetings can be scheduled in advance, with designated leaders (facilitators) and collaborators, and can be organized on a whiteboard or in a more linear format.?
By integrating these meetings into your workflow, you can automatically keep everyone accountable.?
Give it a try — starting with these meetings is quite easy, taking just 5 seconds to prepare as you assign the team and set start and due dates.
Ideation sessions
The last recommendation is to move your initial ideation sessions to asynchronous formats. Sometimes, when evaluating a concept, we want to discuss it with the team or even the client to get a sense of how they feel about the idea and what other ideas they may have. When facing a challenge, we may want to gather the team’s ideas, opening the discussion to everyone with a “How might we [achieve something]?”.
Usually, the person leading these sessions instantly schedules a meeting, inviting four, five, six, seven, eight, or even more people to participate because they want everyone involved. While everyone wants to be part of it, the team often feels discouraged and not fully engaged, as they may not know where the idea “is going” and feel that the meeting takes away valuable time from getting their work done.
These meetings can be easily transitioned to asynchronous sessions, and the leader needs to spend more time defining the importance of the meeting. For example, communicating that participation is welcome but not required, and being clear when participation is mandatory. This helps team members focus on the things that matter most for the business’s growth while allowing them to be part of initial conversations if the topic interests them.
At Nova, we have a Slack channel called “open ideation,” which serves as a chat where we share ideation sessions, and team members can participate if they are interested in the topic. We only assign those team members who are 100% necessary for the session, streamlining the process and ensuring focused and engaged participation.
For more tips, check out our blog, contact us or create your first async meeting in a few seconds for free at Nova.?