No More Meetings!
Most companies I get to work with love metrics. Most love to measure things. I wish I could say that they always spend the time to understand what they’re measuring and use the information to inform their decisions, but that doesn’t always happen! Still, most companies I’ve interacted with love to measure things.
On a journey to work in a more agile way, there are a number of metrics that we can put in place.
Team Health might be a pretty good one. Not only does this allow each team to self-assess how they feel they’re doing, it allows the team to quickly see areas where they want/need to focus efforts, as the journey to help make it easier to get our work done progresses. Whether your team has developed their own way of capturing this data for use themselves, or if they’ve aligned with other teams in their line of business, or possibly beyond, it may be a great first step.
If you think you’re well along your journey, here’s a little test you can take:
Count the number of meetings you attend.
It’s an interesting metric to consider for your team. Simply counting the number of meetings you attend. That may sound odd. Bear with me as I set this up…
Your team has a clear purpose. Or at least I hope you do, if you’re well along your journey! You’re also, hopefully, following the working agreements your team has in place, visualizing your work, running retrospectives on a regular basis with improvements that you’re able to make within your own team…
So what does the number of meetings you attend have to do with any of this?
Well, the number of meetings you attend might be indicative of something. It might be a clue that your team doesn’t have the skills, expertise, or authority to deliver against your purpose. It’s a signal that maybe, perhaps, you need to revisit the design of your team, and look at the makeup of the skills, expertise, and authority your team has.
A great place to start is to consider your value stream. A value stream is the sequence of activities required to design, produce, and provide a specific good or service, and along which information, materials, and worth flows. When we look at the product or service our team provides, our value stream helps us identify how the work we do creates value. And understanding that if we’re not able to create that value within our team, it might mean there’s an opportunity to find a way to revisit the design of our team. Maybe we can enhance the design our team to allow us to make it easier to get our work done.
Not all meetings are created equal. Your daily huddle could be considered a meeting. Your retrospective could be considered a meeting. Your planning and refinement meetings even have the word “meeting” right in them! In my opinion, your regular retrospective meeting is the most important meeting you can attend, assuming you’re coming up with improvements for your team. Please don’t try to eliminate that!
In spite of the title of this post, the object isn’t to eliminate meetings! It’s to get us thinking about the meetings we do attend today, and why are they necessary. The idea to think about is making sure we have the right skills on the teams that need those skills. Being Self-Sufficient means we’re working towards eliminating – or reducing as much as possible – the dependences outside the team.
This isn’t going to happen overnight for most teams. We’re all on a journey to help us find ways to make it easier to get our work done. Having all of the skills, expertise, and authority we need as a part of our team can help us get there. But it is a journey. And it’s going to take time to move along this journey…
For now, think about the meetings you attend. Why are those meetings necessary? What skills, experience, or authority does your team not have that’s requiring you to have that meeting? What might you consider to help your team become more self-sufficient, and make it easier for your team to get great work done?