
Ask HN: Are meetings painful for you? If so, how would you improve them? - eafkuor
In my team we have recurrent meetings such as demos, retro and planning. During those meetings most people are absent minded, often including myself.<p>Do you experience a similar situation at your job? If so, how would you like to improve it?
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iamkp
Recurring meetings are bad. Most people come unprepared and since it is
recurring unless you have made any progress, you are wasting time just for the
sake of it.

Publishing agenda before meeting is a must. There is no point in starting a
meeting on a blank note.

Many meetings can just be conducted over threads on slack or Microsoft team.
What I mean by this is, the type of meeting where you want to confirm or come
to an agreement over something, that chat thread can help flush out details
before you waste everyones time over it.

In short, move most of your meeting and emails to your collaboration tool.

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greenyoda
> _In short, move most of your meeting and emails to your collaboration tool._

Even old-fashioned collaboration tools like e-mail can be used effectively to
avoid meetings. A discussion of an issue that doesn't need to be decided
immediately can just as easily be done asynchronously via e-mail.

I've gotten countless meeting requests that are just some product manager
wanting to get a specific item of information from a group of developers. I've
averted many of these meetings just by declining the meeting request with
"Here's the information you need, no need to have a meeting about this. E-mail
me if you need more information."

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chrisbennet
Bad meetings are often the result of having meetings to discuss things that
could/should have been done in email before the meeting. Send out a meeting
agenda so people can come to the meeting with _answers_ instead of being
blindsided.

Bad meeting: Sue: "Could you get me the figures for bugs-over-time?" Bob:
"I'll have to get back to you on that."

Good meeting: Sue: "Bob investigate our bugs-over-time metric. Can you share
with us what you found out?"

If you are asking a question in a meeting that could have been asked before
the meeting just as easily, you're wasting expensive "meeting time".

