

The 15 Minute Meeting - mbesto
http://www.techdisruptive.com/2011/05/10/the-15-minute-meeting/

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parfe
No way would people from different campuses show up to 15 minute meeting. And
they certainly would not take it seriously if we ended the meeting on a hard
15 minute limit. They'd have spent more time traveling than meeting.

Sure we have nice brisk meetings with devs in the same job role who might not
be on site, but someone from PR or a Vice President is going to think it's a
joke.

In the case that it was a top down order from my VP everyone would just have
pre-meeting meetings so when the VP sits in we could hit his 15 minute
deadline.

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ryanlchan
Imposing timing on meetings is irrelevant at best and destructive at worst.

The real reason these Agile, Googlesque meeting techniques dictate a time is
to force attendees to prioritize. You can't dick around in a 15 minute
meeting. However, by artificially imposing a time limit you also curb
productive discussion. Fact of the matter is, some decisions take longer than
15 minutes to come to.

Instead of focusing on the _time_ a meeting takes, focus on what needs to get
done and who needs to do it. Create concrete objectives, then give _one_
person that responsibility: "John will assign work streams to all team
members" vs "Do work planning". No ambiguity - success on an objective is
binary.

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corin_
Personally these are, fairly often, "smoke meetings". Obviously doesn't work
when working with non-smokers, but for those occasions when you just need to
spend 10-15 minutes like this with one or more people who happen to smoke
(assuming you do too), it's a great way to have a productive meeting while
also getting rid of what can be a waste of time (a normal smoking break).

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mbesto
Funny, we just had a fire drill and my boss had a quick smoke, which then
turned into 10 minute meeting with another person in our office. This then
turned into an actionable item between him and myself, which probably would
have gotten pushed off until a later date.

I wonder how valuable a mass company wide 15 minute power meeting would be?

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chriswoodford
i really back these types of meetings, though in my practice, i call them
"POWER MEETINGS" (i always hear it in my head like it was said by the VO for
Power Thirst, hence the caps). get to the point, get the idea(s) out, and then
get to work.

more substance, less filler, and i find more gets done

