Conducting Effective Sessions Instead of Meetings (#6)

Motivation

It is entirely possible that, despite a meeting, the desired outcome was not achieved, making it necessary to schedule another meeting. Due to this and the fact that they are frequently poorly organized, they have a poor reputation in general. Thanks to new tools, remedial action can be taken.

182 senior managers in a range of industries: 65% said meetings keep them from completing their own work. 71% said meetings are unproductive and inefficient. 64% said meetings come at the expense of deep thinking. 62% said meetings miss opportunities to bring the team closer together. - Harvard Business

Challenge

Being efficient and effective at the same time. A meeting seems to be efficient but often not very effective. An alternative could be a workshop but this is associated with a lot of effort and preparation. So the question is, what other alternatives are left to us?

Let’s take a step back and try to understand why we do meetings in the first place. So I googled it.

Most meetings consist either of simple conversation or participants individually taking notes for themselves. The chance for a follow-up meeting due to a misunderstanding is high. How is it possible for everyone to leave the room/session with the same picture of how to solve the problem?

Solution approach

By visualizing it. The final appearance of the visualization is entirely up to you. Personally, I've moved away from the traditional analog whiteboard, and here's why:

It has limited space.
It doesn’t really scale with multiple participants.
You have to capture it again digitally since it’s analog.
It’s out of sync quite fast. For example, if you take a photo of a whiteboard, you can’t rearrange things if a better idea comes to you or things change during implementation.

I prefer to capture it digitally with my team right away. Some tools are already specialized in this field: Miro, Mural, FigJam

This brings further benefits:

You can prepare a board for the meeting.
Participants do not have to be physically present due to remote work.
Concepts can just be duplicated and changed easily.
You can use methods like: work together alone.
It can be changed and modified afterwards easily.
It’s therefore in sync and serves as a single source of truth.
You can quickly onboard new peers.

What types of visualization can be done together or alone? To name a few: Affinity mapping, Card sorting, User story mapping, etc.

First, people need to let go of outdated perspectives—the belief that verbal meetings alone are fast, when in reality they often slow things down, and the misconception that taking the time to visualize your thoughts and ideas is slow, when it’s actually much more efficient and effective.

In the long run, visualizing the problem you're trying to solve is a valuable investment for both you and your team. It significantly reduces the risk of misunderstandings and helps minimize the need for follow-up meetings. And when follow-ups are necessary, they tend to be shorter, as everyone is aligned by working from the same visual representation.

*Note: This method of visualization works well whether everyone is working from home, in the office, or a mix of both. When everyone is in the office, it’s helpful to have laptops available for group meetings in the same room to facilitate collaboration.