Hacker News Reader

Comment by cgio | Hacker News Reader

My take: 0) invite the right people 1) send all relevant reading material 2 days before meeting 2) have an agenda for the meeting - in the invitation 3) agree who runs the meeting 4) follow the agenda, keep a log of issues that hijack the discussion but leave it at that and keep on with the subject 5) document decisions 6) send email with decisions/actions

Not that complex. I run meetings quite often, and they always work fine. Now workshops are a different think...

View on HN

Yeah, I think "send all the relevant reading materials before hand" is great, and I'd add "and make sure everyone reads them" which is a cultural thing.

Another great one is to differentiate between items which are 'for decision' and those that are 'for discussion' - it sets expectations. If something is 'for decision' then the max-4-sides reading materials should cover all aspects (pros/cons) and it should be possible to make a decision from the materials.

If something is 'for discussion' then the meeting is going to contribute to the reading materials so there will be missing parts, or perhaps controversies that need to be hammered out in the meeting.

How does one "make sure everyone reads" the material? Issuing a pop quiz is popular amongst only school teachers.

Tufte says to set aside 1/3 of your meeting time to have everyone read the agenda and relevant information at the start.

Yes, that's what I meant by this this is a "cultural thing". In some organisations turning up to a meeting and not having done the pre-work would be unacceptable, in others it's not. It's something that the whole group has to buy into.

1.5) Inform everyone of the purpose of the meeting. Shall we come to a decision about something, produce some code, or align the goals for the project?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com