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Un-Boring Meetings
1. Meetings are unavoidably boring when there is little shared knowledge and understanding between participants due to large, dispersed groups with differentiated roles. 2. However, meetings are still necessary for accountability in sharing information and making decisions. 3. The document proposes increasing shared understanding through methods like social streams and colocation, and establishing alternative practices for specific meeting purposes like sharing non-critical information or making simple decisions. This could help reduce unnecessary boring meetings while maintaining accountability.
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Un-Boring Meetings
- 1. un-boring meetings Sebastian Deterding (@dingstweets) Alibisfor Interaction November 11, 2016 c b
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- 4. big, long, informationaldepartment meetings booooooo-ring (in case you wondered)
- 5. constant, small in-team‘meetings’ during production not boring at all
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- 7. Meetings are boringwhen we don’t give or receive something we find relevant. observation
- 8. so how dowe cut straight to the relevant bits?
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- 10. the problem isnot how we do meetings. it’s that we do them. teaser
- 11. “Always design athing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” eliel saarinen
- 12. there are organisational contextsthat make meetings both (1) unavoidably boring and (2) unavoidable. teaser
- 13. how do weredesign organisational contexts to avoid doing (unavoidably boring) meetings? the real question
- 14. but first, somehygiene
- 15. meeting design doesmatter* * Links at the end
- 16. meetings≈games: goals+rules+players+material definepossible results
- 17. most meeting literaturereiterates the same basic rules with the same clear goals One defined purpose that only a meeting can achieve clear rules The right and tight agenda with time boxes, participants, roles, activities clear feedback Ongoing visual documentation, record- keeping of decisions, actions, insights sportspersonship Commitment and mutual care basic meeting result in mind
- 18. chapter 2 Shared ground,or: Why meetings must be boring
- 19. 1. To share& deliberate information & concerns 2. To deliberate, make & share decisions why do we meet? 3. To solve problems 4. To nurture social relations • getting to know each other • being seen • catching up • … Officially recognised Workshops are better formats Often an inofficial agenda, though meetings are poor tools to achieve it
- 20. All I knowAll you know What’s relevant
- 21. What I know isrelevant
- 22. What you know isrelevant
- 23. What we know isrelevant
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- 25. ? but what ifwe don’t know what we already know?
- 26. ? i’ll tell youstuff i didn’t know you know or find irrelevant
- 27. ? you’ll tell mestuff you didn’t know i know or find irrelevant
- 28. ? and if weboth come with colleagues who share ground with us …
- 29. “Some of youwill already be familiar with this, but …” “This may not be relevant to everyone here, but …” common give-aways
- 30. what matters ismutually known shared ground !
- 31. game jam: small,co-located project team Continuous incidental info-sharing Continuous shared decision-making Many quick, focused 1-on-1 conversations Large known shared ground !
- 32. uni: big, dispersed,differentiated org Infrequent cross-group info-sharing Unclear cross-group decision-making Few, long, oversharing many- to-many meetings ?Small/unknown shared ground
- 33. The larger, moredispersed, and functionally differentiated the host organisation, … the less frequent incidental information-sharing, … the more unclear decision-making authority, … the more participants at the meeting (3+), … … the more meeting participants are structurally predisposed to say and hear things they find irrelevant. … the smaller the known shared ground,
- 34. chapter 3 Accountability, or: Whywe still meet
- 35. if shared groundwas all … … we could do it by e-mail … or wiki … and we all just read or skip as needed.* * a.k.a. “knowledge management”
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- 37. “Sorry, I didn’tsee that e-mail, maybe it landed in my spam folder/ you know my inbox/…”
- 38. accountability in reallife: legal serving
- 39. accountability in reallife: witnesses and signatures
- 40. accountability in digitallife: read receipt
- 41. to act, weneed accountable shared ground mutual presence I know You knowthat You know that I know that etc.
- 42. “Well you can’tsay you didn’t know.” “You were at the meeting. You had the chance to say something then.” common give-aways
- 43. 1. Meetings areunavoidably boring in groups with little known shared ground and … 2. we can’t ditch meetings because we need accountable information and decision-sharing. 3. Ergo, despair? what we learned so far
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- 45. 1. Meetings areunavoidably boring in groups with little known shared ground and … 2. we can’t ditch meetings because we need accountable information and decision-sharing. 3. Ergo, despair? hack #1: increase known shared ground
- 46. hack #1: increaseknown shared ground social streams colocation delegation to teams
- 47. 1. Meetings areunavoidably boring in groups with little known shared ground and … 2. we can’t ditch meetings because we need accountable information and decision-sharing. 3. Ergo, despair? hack #2: institute alternative accountable sharing practices
- 48. hack #2: institutealternative accountable sharing practices purpose Social streams, newsletters, … nice-to-know information accountable information Read receipt black boards simple decision Doodle.com informed decision Silent briefing problem solving nurturing social ties Workshop Alibis 2017 :) ???
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- 50. good meeting rulesmake meetings more productive and less boring …
- 51. ? but with unknownshared ground, we’re bound to bore each other.
- 52. and in big,disperse, differentiated organisations, and in groups of 3+, unknown shared ground is unavoidable. ?
- 53. we stick tomeetings because they are our default for producing accountability in organisations
- 54. so: meet less(boringly) by establishing more known shared ground … social streams colocation delegation to teams
- 55. … and institutealternative ways of achieving accountability … purpose Social streams, newsletters, … nice-to-know information accountable information Read receipt black boards simple decision Doodle.com informed decision Silent briefing problem solving nurturing social ties Workshop Alibis 2017 :) ??? (or other purposes you care about).
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