Meetings are an essential but sometimes disruptive part of working in the Banno group. To minimize the impact and maximize the usefulness of our meetings, we’ve adopted a number of best practices to adhere to. While not all meetings will follow every rule, it’s preferred to stick to as many as possible for every meeting you create.
Only schedule meetings when necessary
Sometimes a face-to-face talk is essential, and we shouldn’t be afraid of firing up a video call (on Slack you can do this directly by entering /zoom meeting, /teams-call meeting, or /hangout in chat) or hopping into a meeting room. However, if an issue can be resolved asynchronously via email or chat, prefer those avenues to scheduling a meeting. They are less likely to disrupt anyone’s flow and allow problems to be solved as everyone is free.
All meetings have a facilitator
If you create a meeting, you are to be responsible for that meeting. This means notifying members, managing any necessary schedule changes, and ensuring that requirements such as agendas and notes are handled.
All meetings have an agenda
A meeting’s leader should always provide an agenda attached to the calendar invite. Ideally this is open to modification by invitees, but regardless there should be a clear set of goals a meeting is aiming to acheive.
If one person is remote, everyone is remote… if possible
Over half of our team is remote. It can get hard to maintain a conversation as a face on the wall when the rest of the group is gathered around a conference table. We don’t have any hard and fast rules about how to handle this, but as a rule of thumb, you should try to keep your camera on and address attendees one-on-one, even if you are a part of a group in a conference room. It makes a huge difference for remote attendees to be able to see everyone’s face, and it keeps everyone on the same page—even if the group is still using a conference room and a single mic.
Meetings should have notes and action items shared out
Once a meeting is done, the leader of that meeting should have a set of notes and actionable items to share out with the participants of that meeting. While the leader doesn’t necessarily need to be the one taking notes, they are responsible for ensuring the notes are taken and shared out.
Respond if you intend to attend (or not)
If you’ve been invited to a meeting, be sure to mark whether or not you’ll make it on the invite. Meeting organizers should mark if any attendees are optional, but even if your attendence it required, sometimes things come up. Be sure to reply with a yes, no, or maybe, and if you’re unable to attend be sure to let the meeting organizer know why.
Try to focus meetings at the beginning of the week
We try to focus our meetings on Monday and Tuesday, allowing the back half of the week to be focused grind time. It’s hard to keep deep technical and creative work alongside regular interruptions, so concentrating meetings across two days allows for a larger chunk of focus for the rest of the week.
If you’re at a meeting, be prepared to talk
If you called or were invited to a meeting, hopefully there was good reason for it. Keep your camera on and be ready to engage. If you’re not sure you’ll be able to, let the organizer know.
Let team members know if they need to attend
Often times, the easiest way to let a team know you need one of them there is to invite the whole team. If you only need one representative from the team, let that team know so the rest can decline and keep working during that time.
Avoid Friday meetings unless absolutely necessary
Fridays are generally used to ensure everything is prepared for the weekend and to finish up thoughts started throughout the week. Friday afternoons are dedicated to 10% time, allowing staff to focus on important side-projects. As such, meetings should only be added to Fridays if an unforseen event needs to be addressed before Monday.
All Hands is an exception to this, taking place on a Friday afternoon once per month. This is set on this day to allow for maximum accessibility and availability across all teams. We will do our best to keep this meeting highly visible, as it provides important context to our teams and the direction our entire business unit is moving. If another day becomes a better candidate, we will always ensure that All Hands takes place on the best day for teams.