Better online meetings?
Reprinted from a LinkedIn article I first shared as we were getting used to working remotely in 2020
I've sat through one too many Zoom slide presentations recently. Sometimes I sit in meetings and feel that the only desired contribution from attendees is head-nodding or applause when the presenter has finished showing us how brilliant their work is.
At the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, we found that 50% of meeting time was wasted, at the same time as many decisions being made that were either sub-optimal or could more effectively have been delegated. Reconfiguring purpose, process and attendance of meetings alone could have saved the organisation 1-2% of staffing costs. More importantly, its highest paid and most senior managers spent most of their time either preparing for or in decision or update meetings or tasking staff, leaving little time for problem solving - ie actually advancing thinking or work
I think one of the problems is that people don't think about meeting purpose, format, attendance and process sufficiently ahead of the event. This is exacerbated by the challenges of remote working.
The same rules of running good meetings apply online as face-to-face, but more so! I suggest there are three distinct species of useful meetings. Be clear on your objective and select and stick to the most apt species:
SPECIES 1: THE UPDATE
Purpose:
Use update meetings to keep everyone aligned and foster collaboration. I like to hold them weekly. They are essentially social, keeping your team connected even when people are working on different projects or located in different places. Update meetings do not progress work, solve problems or make decisions - rather, they facilitate connection.
Attendance:
Everyone in your team, function, unit or location. If that's too many, teams can be represented by an individual(s) - although you then need further update opportunities for each team. Be careful with that - you can quickly end up with a complex cascade of updates and a consequent game of 'Chinese whispers'.
Agenda:
Good updates give everyone (or for large groups, every team) a <5 minute opportunity to cover:
Recent accomplishments
What's coming up (key events, tasks, or objectives for the week)
What they need help with
What help they can offer others
You may choose to follow up such a session with a ~30 minute 'brief' or discussion on a topic of of general interest. This could showcase some interesting work, solicit opinions or volunteers that will help in one team's endeavours, or bring a valuable but unusual perspective to the team (eg the voice of a customer, supplier, partner, or ex-employee).
From my personal experience, these regular updates are best held first thing on a Monday morning, and combined with breakfast. What a great way to start the week! Of course, that won't suit every team.
BCG's Melbourne Office used to do this supremely effectively, with all-staff breakfast meetings every Monday morning. With after-work drinks on a Friday afternoon, this was a great way of topping and tailing the week and ensured colleagues stayed connected despite spending most of the week away, at client premises
Prework:
No prework is necessary for most attendees. Each weekly update needs a chair, and someone needs to arrange and prep any additional follow-up sessions (special topics, external speakers). Once you're in a routine, everyone will learn to think through their 1-5 sentence personal update ahead of each meeting...
Duration:
10 minutes check in (eg How do you feel today? What are your expectations? Anything keeping you from being fully present?). Keep it brief - I've even seen single word check-ins used successfully for groups that see a lot of each other
<10 minutes leader's 'view from the bridge' if needed
2-5 minutes x number of updating participants (it's hard to say anything in less than 2 minutes!)
10 minutes to check-out (was that meeting useful, what worked well, what could have been even better)
Moderation:
The chair has relatively little to do. Set the tone - arrive early, chat with attendees as they arrive, intervene only to keep to time or prevent the group slipping into debate and problem-solving. Capture any points of contention or requiring resolution and ensure they get followed up offline - you should recap these at the end of the meeting.
Remote issues:
The hardest thing, especially with larger groups, is allowing space for the 1:1 interactions that the meeting aims to foster. Encourage people to use the chat function on your remote meeting software. You could also prompt some more informal interaction, eg if on a Monday morning, ask each 'updater' to include not just the work stuff but something interesting that happened on the weekend, or an item of news that has caught their attention...
Another way to connect people is to ensure the meeting finishes 15-30 minutes before (most) team members need to be back at their desks/posts, and ask each to identify someone in the 'room' to set up a coffee chat with later in the week. Then at the next update, ask for any volunteers to describe what they learned from their coffee chat that week? The Open University had a great 'coffee chat' network to connect people across functions and departments..
Pitfalls:
Too often, updates are seen as an opportunity for senior people to talk to (at?) everyone else. The whole team troops into a virtual room, the leader talks, perhaps with some slides or a report, for 30-60 minutes, and everyone troops out. For such one-to-many updates of 'important information', why not just record a video or podcast? You have no means for deep engagement, and little idea if people are listening.
Limit debate and discussion, although a really useful update will spark many, later, offline discussions.
SPECIES 2: THE DECISION MEETING
Much depends on the nature of the decision(s) and your organisation's governance processes. Bear in mind:
Purpose:
Do use decision meetings to decide which of a limited set of possible courses of action to take. Do not confuse decision meetings by trying to develop solutions or create new alternatives. Do not use a decision meeting to discuss (ratify?) a decision where there are no alternatives - that's not a decision.
Attendance:
Ensure you have the decision maker(s) present, or their delegated representatives. Not everyone on the call has the same role. Understand who has decision rights (or veto rights), who is an advisor, who must be consulted. If a decision will have serious consequences for a function or department, are they represented in the meeting? Are those who must implement it represented? Is there a spectrum of mindsets, backgrounds, perspectives in the room? But to avoid a cast of thousands, ask yourself if anyone present isn't in one of these roles, why are they here? Ensure you are clear why every individual on the call needs to be there, and that they are clear on what role they play.
Agenda:
The agenda is the list of decisions to be taken (if more than one). Think about the order. Do certain decisions require slightly different attendance? If so, can you arrange them to avoid people leaving and rejoining the call, or listening in (and even contributing) where they are not required? Are the most urgent decisions up first? What about the most important? Which would you be happy to drop off the list if you run out of time?
Prework:
Unlike update meetings, you probably want key information to be prepared and circulated ahead of the meeting. That doesn't mean five minutes ahead - consider how long attendees will need to read and digest it, and follow up with any questions. And whether they are likely to have the free time to do so in the run-up to the meeting.
Beware of presenting faits accomplis - detailed evaluation of options with a single overwhelming recommendation may push people into camps of opponents and supporters. Can you lead in with enough background information to enable a good discussion - framing the options, the criteria to be used, and facts/data that will help?
Duration:
Decision meetings are likely to be longer than updates, but of course it's impossible to be definitive. One thing is certain - it is highly unlikely that Outlook's default of 60 minutes is going to be the right length. Three 'C's will influence the right duration to allow for:
How CONTENTIOUS is the decision?
How CRITICAL are its consequences?
How COMPLEX are the essential factors that must be considered?
Critical and contentious or complex decisions need more time - be flexible and allow it.
Moderation:
Moderation is critical to good decision meetings. If you can, make decision maker(s) speak last. Once their opinions are known, others may speak less freely. Ensure everyone speaks and is heard, without interruption or argument. You may need to be proactive to do this, and you may need to intervene. Try to elicit reasoning, and thoughts on criteria and evaluation, rather than just yes/no opinions. Ideally the chair should capture salient arguments/data points. Be prepared to explore tangents/side issues or different perspectives and points of view, but be willing to shut down discussion if things go wildly off track. End with crystal clarity on what has been decided and who needs to take what action and when to enact the decision.
Remember to top-and-tail
10 mins check-in eg What are you feeling? Are you fully present?
10 mins to check-out eg What worked well? Even better if?
Remote issues:
To ensure everyone speaks, you may wish to lay out how you will run the meeting at the outset, how the decision(s) will be made, and what the differing roles of individuals are (of course, if these are regular/frequent meetings, everyone may know that already).
Invite the person who has prepared the materials for discussion, or recommendations, quickly to lay out the background, decision that is required, and options. The suggested criteria and any recommendation or assessment of impacts of options should follow. It is easier to reach consensus if everyone agrees on the criteria being used, so it is worth spending time to get to that point if it has not already been done.
Go round the 'table' - twice. Ask each individual in turn whether they have any questions, either of clarification or interpretation. Once those are out of the way and you have agreement on criteria, go round the virtual table and ask each individual to give their thoughts. You can't see facial expressions/body language as clearly. Try to keep them to the point, encourage them to address you rather than colleagues, and draw out their logic/reasoning, particularly if you can see disagreement looming. You should be trying to sense if raging consensus exists, in which case you can urge the group to short-cut the process, or the opposite in which case you need to try to uncover what is driving the disagreement.
Pitfalls:
Silence, passive aggression, disengagement are perhaps the biggest risks. In a room you get a much better sense of how people are feeling than online, which is why I recommend a somewhat clunky process - but you have to positively make sure people aren't being railroaded or groupthinking their way to a suboptimal outcome.
SPECIES 3: PROBLEM SOLVING
Most of my productive work over the past 40 years has been in problem solving sessions, from my syndicate groups during my MBA, through case teams in consulting firms through to project teams in the corporate world. Sure, I've also done a bunch of analysis on my own, and sat in endless (and often pointless) Steering Committees and Boards, but the real breakthroughs happen when people come together and bounce off each other's thoughts.
McKinsey are past masters of the Problem Solving session. What is notable there is the lack of hierarchy, the way even the most senior partners get involved with all levels of analysis, and the obligation to voice dissent that all colleagues share
Purpose:
The objective of Problem Solving sessions (PSs) is not to share or decide but to progress thinking. They can cover:
Workplanning - how to tackle complex or ambiguous problems, breaking up the 'elephant' into manageable chunks and defining individual pieces of work that can be taken away and delivered by individuals/sub-teams
Review of emerging hypotheses and results - when the results of those bits of work start to come back, what do they mean? What do we need to do next?
Discussion of interpretation and formulation of recommendations or decisions
Preparation of materials to inform and facilitate decision meetings - having decided what we want to say, how best to engage the decision makers in order to make the best decisions and drive the right action
I schedule time for my teams' PSs even before knowing what the topics will be - they're a vital part of the problem-solving process. The idea is to bring the work of individuals/sub-teams together, progress it collaboratively, and then disband again for more individual work to be done. This is very different to the much more common hierarchical method of individuals/sub-teams slaving away to produce a 'perfect' document, then presenting it to decision makers in the hope it will impress and not get 'seagulled' on from a height.
Think:
Collaborative
Non-hierarchical
Iterative
Frequent
Relatively unstructured
Non-judgmental
Attendance:
Diversity is perhaps most important in problem solving. Insight can come from anyone. Think about what expertise you need (technical, or subject matter knowledge), how people's mindsets and backgrounds might contribute. You probably want to limit size to six or seven maximum, as the discussion can be quite freewheeling at times. People working on allied workstreams, or who will need to take the outputs of the meeting and act upon them (eg answering questions drawn up by the meeting) should be included if possible.
Agenda:
Straightforward - the list of problems to be addressed.
Prework:
PSs work best when someone has framed the problem. Think of them as a resource that 'problem-owners' can tap into to push their thinking forward. The 'problem owner' should bring enough material and some sense of structure to enable the group to work on it, in a form that is readily, quickly understood. So large spreadsheets or long text documents are less useful that pithy slide decks. But they should be very clear what input they seek - usually by way of a focused question or set of questions.
Duration:
Highly variable; set a time and try to stick to it - think of PSs as a 'resource' - eg 90 minutes of team time, that team members can use to focus on and advance their problems
At least 1 hour - 2-3 may work better (you can always end early) - less than an hour is likely to be of little use!
Moderation:
Let the problem-owner lead their section - but be prepared to step in to ensure everyone on the call understands enough to be able to contribute, and has the space to do so.
Format:
Flexibility and collaboration are key
For each 'problem' to be tackled, the problem-owner should put the question and give enough background for the team to get stuck in. Where some progress has been made, lay it out in a short written note or slide pack (with supporting data/analysis)
The problem-owner then seeks input from the team. In response, individual team members may take the floor to explore a particular thought or approach. Do not shut these down instantly, but try to assess when they have run their course if they do not look like they will yield an advance in thinking
Expect interruption and challenge; try not to be defensive and encourage problem-owners to do the same
The chair keeps track of time, ensuring all required topics are covered and sessions end with practical next steps
Remote issues:
Use slides to capture and share progress before the session - used well they bring structure and logic and are easier to review and work on
The obligation to dissent is a golden rule. Every team member must raise ideas and points of disagreement as they arise - the chair should check-in frequently to ensure all on the call are on board
Don't forget the obligatory check-in and check-out - however brief
Thanks for reading! This is not definitive, nor the product of extensive research or consultation - but I've tried to capture and distill my experience. If you disagree, or have other 'species' you would like to add, I'd love to hear from you. And if you found the article interesting or useful, do please like or share it!
