Pet peeve: Meeting Requests
I think that I might have blogged about this before but, I can't be bothered Msn'ing it and it's worth repeating anyway.
Don't send meeting requests out which look something like this:
Subject: Meeting to discuss the future of product
Y
Body: {empty}
Attendees:
Attendee0... AttendeeN
What happens when you send a request like this is that the first 20 minutes of the meeting are wasted while everybody tries to understand the context of the meeting - and when they do, it's likely that several attendees will be thinking to themselves "why am I here for that?". Others will be thinking... gee, if I knew that *that's* what we are here for I would have read up about "X".
Outlook should include extra, mandatory sections with a meeting request.
- There should be a compulsory "Context" section where you offer some contextual information about why it has become neccessary to have a meeting.
- There should be a compulsory "expected deliverables" section where it is clear about what it is that you hope to get out of the meeting.
I've even gone to the trouble of adding a section to my meeting requests which outline why I've invited certain people, i.e.:
Scott: Invited because you are an expert on the topic of "X" and
we may need your help to break through "Y"
Paul: Invited because
I'm hoping that you will be able to help with the "Y" part of the
deliverables
Nigel: As team leader of the "H" team, I think that
it would be valuable for you to know about this section of our
project.
...
One last thing; punctuality is important. Meetings should begin on time and they should also end on time.
Communication and Collaboration aren't easy but, they are even harder when no real effort is made.