Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.

By Anthony Stevens

[Opening scene: twelve more-or-less bored people sit around a conference table, looking up at a PowerPoint presentation displayed on the projector]

Meeting Organizer: So, you’ll see that Feature X isn’t slated to begin development until March 10th, which is a problem because Feature Y needs to be deployed to the users no later than February 15th.  And the team is tied up with…let’s see…Feature Z…until late January, I think, which means scheduling is a problem.

Assembled Crowd: <indecipherable>…uh huh….hm. [Lots of chin scratching]

Is this scene familiar?  A boring topic, a slide deck, lack of understanding of the purpose of the meeting, and lots of wasted time?  How many hundreds or thousands of hours have you personally spent in pointless meetings?  Have you ever wanted to stab your own eyeball?  Are you one of many who succumb to the easy allure of the web-enabled phone to distract yourself during meetings?

My thesis is simple: Most meetings suck.  Further, now that more and more of our professional interactions will be done with people who are not physically collocated with you, the opportunity for suck increases exponentially.  Let’s attempt to understand the problems and brainstorm some solutions.

Problem #1: Too Many Meetings.  The short answers are: schedule fewer meetings, and ruthlessly reevaluate whether you need to continue standing meetings.  The long answer is: make the meetings you do have more productive, so you’ll need fewer of them.  Read on.

Problem #2: Lack of Adequate Preparation.  This one kills me.  How many times have you gotten an hour-long meeting request whose topic is something vague like “Discuss Product X”, with no additional explanatory material?

Meetings should be directed in the sense of having a purpose and a goal.  These should be made explicit to all attendees.  Meeting attendees should be provided with enough background information to prepare themselves to contribute actively to the discussion.  Show people you value their time by giving them the information they need to make the meeting useful to them – not just you.

Problem #3: Show, Don’t Tell.  This age-old adage for the writer also applies to meeting moderators.  A big problem with meetings is that the interactions are mostly verbal – people talking.  Some of us learn better and contribute more constructively in a visual or tactile manner.

To combat this, we need to take advantage of new tools: tools that allow easy mockups, diagramming, shared whiteboards, and even physical models that can be observed and played with.  Get people using all their senses, not just their ears.

Problem #4: Death By PowerPoint. Edward Tufte wrote a famous article in Wired Magazine called “PowerPoint is Evil”.  The times during meetings when I’ve most wanted to clutch the arm of the person sitting next to me and whisper “please kill me now” have come when the moderator reads in a monotone from a boring-looking PowerPoint slide deck.  So the previous prescription to Show, Don’t Tell doesn’t begin and end with throwing a PowerPoint up on the projector.

PowerPoint, when used wisely, can be a great tool.  But it’s only a tool.  Make meetings more about interaction, collaboration, and engagement, and less about endless recitation of 30-pt text that I could read for myself in 10 seconds.

Problem #5: Lack of Follow Up. This is a pet peeve of mine – you have an hour long meeting on some topic, and at the end, there are no tasks for anyone to follow up on, no expectations for deliverables, no…nothing.  Just an hour flapping your gums.

Make sure that next steps are discussed, agreed upon, documented, and distributed.  Then do the unthinkable and actually follow up with people to make sure that progress is being made.

Problem #6: Distributed Teams.  Our ability to have unproductive meetings grows in lockstep with our newfound ability to meet virtually.  An Agile precept is that teams work best when they are physically collocated.  But your development team may be in Bangalore, your accountant is in Boston, and your human resources contractor in Boise.  How can you conduct distributed team meetings in the most effective way?  In addition to the problems mentioned above, you may run into issues with scheduling, shared languages, cultural norms, and the lack of nonverbal body language that accompanies in-person meetings.

To combat these additional problems, focus even more on preparation.  Make every meeting count. Ensure that everyone shares the same context, background info, understands the goals of the meeting, and leaves with the same expectations. Follow up.  In addition, make use of new connectivity tools like WebEx, GoToMeeting, Skype, or Blabylon to bring people together with audio, video, and shared desktop tools to give additional ways to get in sync.

What interesting ideas do you have for making meetings more productive?  How do you engage your teams?  Is the traditional meeting dead, and should be replaced with quick, ad-hoc stand-ups at a shared whiteboard?  I’d like to know – please share in the comments!

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