i thunk so

For years now, I’ve been involved with both the management and the production sides of projects. As a result, I’ve been in too many meetings. I’ve thought about it for awhile, and I’ve decided that web project meetings fall into one of these four categories:

1. The aimless project with ambiguous agenda kickoff meeting
   • This type of meeting tends to occur near the beginning of a project (ideally, anyway), and generally centers around vague project “requirements” and flippant timeline considerations. Priorities may be discussed and shifted during this phase. Roles and responsibilities are also discussed in this meeting, but almost always only as a CYA measure for reference when the fingerpointing meeting (see below) occurs later.
2. The “Free thinkers unite” meeting
   • This meeting is usually the bottleneck of any undertaking that kills the spirit of anyone who is actually tasked with real work on the project being discussed. Companies with no firm grip on project management are strangled by the lack of organization and the non-existence of a defined project team. This opens the floodgate of ideas from unaccountable sources. Non-stakeholders who are still perceived as “experts” are often invited to these meetings (usually by other non-stakeholders) in order to add complexity and unrealistic goals to the project.
3. The fire drill meeting
   • This is the meeting which is ultimately called near the end of every project timeline. It is where most of the real work gets done. Of necessity, the previous offending non-stakeholders are left off of the invite list. Unfortunately, though, their damage has already been done. The original requirements of the project will now be quickly redefined to water down the original goals of the project, while still including as much of the flair and garnish piled on by the free thinkers. The end result is usually an overbearing and ineffective product which will ensure the job security of all involved since it will lead to glaring flaws in the ability of the worker ants to produce quality product. This results in the need for endless revisions to the already ineffective product. It also creates the need for more specialized managers to be brought in to manage the ineffective managers already in place.
4. The fingerpointing meeting
   • This meeting generally takes place immediately following the late or delayed release of an untested product — untested since any time alotted for testing was hijacked by the need for endless revision requests from upper crust non-stakeholders. Usually, one or more of the upper crust will attend this crucial meeting to sternly evaluate the team’s many failures. Communication — more specifically, the breakdown of it — is always established as a primary culprit in the project’s derailment. Accountability issues are raised, and finger-pointing begins. This meeting typically ends with a directive that “this will never happen again at this company” and a promise to formulate a plan to ensure it.

This stale, corporate environment is the killjoy of many a career. It is the reason people ultimately decide in favor of looking for work elsewhere or becoming an independent contractor.

You may be asking yourself “What can I do to stop meetings where I work?” The key is to state your demands before agreeing to attend any meeting. Set your attendance status to “tentative” and request a meeting agenda from the organizer. You also have the option to decline a meeting. Doing so may raise the ire of the organizer, but will at least open the dialog about why you feel the meeting would have been ineffective. This brings me to my most important point when it comes to combatting useless meetings.

Managers yammer on about openness and communication. They have open-door policies, but they love to be intimidating. The first time you speak your mind, you may be shocked at the result. Managers whose methods and practices are questioned openly in meetings are often left with nothing to say. And wasn’t that the point all along?

Filed by JP at 11:26 am under Opinions, Work, Business