I was at a Product conference recently, and several talks emphasised the importance of meeting-free days to keep momentum. This creates space for experimentation, fast iterations, learning and refining, and ultimately, de-risking your product development.
I’ve been thinking about how we can facilitate this more for our teams — fewer meetings, means more time for doing. However, I think there is a balance with quality, education, and alignment, which are all benefits from regularly pairing on code, syncing with your team, or sweating out the details of a problem together.
Let’s get real with some recommendations:
- Does it have to be a meeting? We’re fully remote at thoughtbot and often, we’re in different timezones too. Could it be a Slack thread instead? It ensures inclusivity, meaning everyone can contribute at a time that’s convenient for them, and gives the team somewhere concrete to reference / refresh their thinking for clarity in the near future.
- Keep meetings short, but don’t be afraid to sweat the details. When there’s signals of misalignment or blockages in the team, the longer these continue, the bigger they’ll become, causing you not only a headache, but greater time inefficiencies in the future. Find the time to get on the same page for vision and approach.
- Have a clear agenda and a desired outcome for every meeting. Hold yourself accountable and encourage others to do the same! Remind everyone of the goal at the beginning of a meeting for alignment. It’s too easy to get sidetracked. Go in with intention and come out with an outcome, or at least, tangible next steps.
- Optional is okay. Let attendees decide if they need to attend a meeting. Engaged teams will make the decision that is best for them and their workload. Trust people.
- Happy teams are important too! Happier teams are 12% more productive and a positive working environment leads to 3x the creativity, meaning more innovation and more problem solving; both fundamentals in product development. Create space for regular, optional, informal team bonding. For remote teams, I like ice breakers once a week at the beginning of retros. You can also try a 15 minute call a few times a week, for folks to just drop-in and chat.