How much time do you spend on these ?
Team meetings, briefs, objectives, problems, solutions, goals, timelines and serious discussions. But someone didn’t understand, someone misunderstood, someone didn’t get a few details. Some are silent throughout, some just sleep with eyes open. Moments of the meeting: e-mail follows. Some things are different from what was discussed. Queries, smaller group discussions, confusion, and escalation. Someone important couldn’t attend the meeting. Seperate briefing for him/her. Second meeting. Clarifications, more doubts. More time is spent about discussing the meeting outside the conference room than the meeting itself.
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| Rajaram Rajendran |
Conference call with the team abroad. Five people dial in from five locations. Updates on weather, last project, introductions to members in the call, then jumbled words and different opinions all over.
These seem to happen a lot. Most often a con-call is followed by a much clearer e-mail. Which makes the call look like a waste of time. Same with meetings. Are these the only options? Do we get into meetings when an e-mail would’ve done a job better? Especially in times where there’s no discussion involved, it’s more if information, e-mails are definitely a better option. If the decision has to be made by a single person, a committee or a group conference never helps. It adds more confusion and the outputs mostly seem to be compromised. Unnecessary meetings and conference calls take up a lot of time.
But we have a conference room. We do meet. How can meetings be better? Maybe listing the objectives before the meeting, and a checklist after the meeting? Does that really help? Perhaps setting a timeline for the meeting and ensuring all points are covered. What if the discussion goes off-topic? Should someone monitor throughout? Or do we really assess the need for a meeting and then decide? These things make a lot of difference in the way a project is handled and also the overall morale of the team. People like fast and logical decisions. If a conference doesnt give that output, we should think of alternatives.
Again as always, things that work and don’t work for us might be different for your organization. Best of luck. If you want to discuss, do write in and let’s have a conference call. Lol.
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The writer is an entrepreneur, designer, digital artist, wannabe musician and a jack of all, who thinks black & white photography is very cool.
To write to the author, please send an email to dare@cybermedia.co.in with the subject line 'Rajaram Rajendran'.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are that of the author and do not represent the magazine's.
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