Budget for meetings
In the dynamic world of digital companies, meetings can quickly spiral into an all-day, back-to-back, endless spiral. Coming from the financial world, why don’t we think that also the meetings can have a budget? The concept is simple: setting a cap on the number, or hours, of meetings an individual can have in a week.
This isn't a one-size-fits-all approach; different roles will have different caps based on their unique responsibilities. The primary goal here is to reduce friction and reclaim valuable time.
Start with Data
How many meetings are we really having?
Before we can make any changes, we need to understand our current state. Gathering and analyzing this data is indeed crucial: it will help us see the extent of the issue, if there is any, and to identify patterns. For some roles, frequent meetings might be necessary, but data will help us anyways to make informed decisions.
Data will also allow us to spot the systemic presence of back-to-back meetings. These are the worst, as they leave no time to breathe, to debrief (individually or as a group), and to prepare for the next meeting.
An idea here may be implementing buffers between meetings can give people the necessary time to debrief, organize action items, and prepare for the next task. This small change can lead to significant improvements in the quality of outcomes and overall productivity.
All or nothing
When we talk about reducing meetings, the immediate reaction is to suggest eliminating them altogether. This isn't the aim nor the scope of this blog post.
We need to distinguish between reducing unnecessary meetings and canceling all meetings. The focus is on streamlining our processes and cutting down on non-essential gatherings to improve efficiency, not to zero in and adopt a one site fits all approach to the issue.
If they want to, people are smart enough to work around the process or the system and will find ways to have more meetings. Once again, this is not the point of this initiative.
Elon’s Algorithm
Elon Musk’s strategy of removing elements to see their impact, as outlined in Isaacson's biography, can be applied here. By cutting some meetings, we can better assess their importance and reinstate them if necessary!
I spoke about Mushk’s algorithm here.
Measuring Success
The success of this initiative should be measured in hours saved rather than FTEs. The goal is to allow everyone to perform their roles more effectively. Saving time on unnecessary meetings frees up valuable hours for high-impact tasks, driving overall organizational efficiency.
