Meetings
I once worked in a company where meetings were long, drawn-out affairs, filled with endless “what if”s, digressions and back-and-forth, typically lasting three to four hours at a time. It was fine for the managers but for the executives who had to do the actual work, it meant having to stay back late after a whole day peppered with talkfests. I ended up becoming extremely leery of meetings. Then I joined a local dot-com startup where there were absolutely no meetings – someone would tell me what feature to implement and I would write the source code. I was in heaven.
In my current organization we have stand-up meetings, usually on a daily basis, lasting a maximum of 30 minutes. As the name implies, everyone stands up to avoid from the meeting dragging on. The project manager would ask for the status and our plan for the day and then we would get on with our work. I think it’s a great system. It strikes the right balance between information sharing and collaboration, and respecting people’s time.
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