Boring Meetings Suck

That is the title of Jon Petz' book on getting more out of meetings and getting out of more meetings. If there's one thing we engineering managers can do, it's to educate ourselves and others to hold better (and fewer) meetings. Pay particular to his "Agenda Item 3," which is his way of titling the book chapters. Agenda 3 has details on how to hold different types of meetings. Here are the bullet points from a couple slides I built on Agenda 3:

Boring Meetings Suck

Agenda 3: New Meeting Styles

“Open House”: people share ideas on their own time or Facebook fan page.

“Pass the Buck”: Move facilitator role among team members

“Stand-it-up”: for meetings of < 15 min

“Triple-T”: text, Twitter, technology

Speed Meetings

“Two ‘n out”: Like ESPN “Pardon the Interruption.” Limit each person to 2 minutes.

“Step It Up”: Specify how many flights of stairs to make your point. Other person makes points on the way down.

“I Gotta Use It”: Everyone drinks a tall glass of water at beginning of meeting. It’s over when someone needs a break.