Actionable steps to improve your meetings as a software developer today

Meetings can be frustrating especially when they are long and there's no valuable outcome at the end. The time feels wasted. You're exhausted. I've been there and you likely too.

I claim that meetings don't need to be frustrating. They can be effective and a good mechanism to make important decisions. We can do better.

Key for efficient meetings is the preparation before and moderation during the meeting with a clear outcome at the end that all stakeholders understand.

Checklist

  1. Familiarize yourself with the topic or problem
  2. Talk to all important* people 1-on-1 before the actual meeting
  3. Write down your findings publicly
  4. Let people review your writing
  5. Do the actual meeting
  6. Have a decision. Otherwise go back to 1.

*people who have good knowledge about the topic, or want to be involved politically, bosses, other persons of relevance. You decide! Not all of them necessarily need to be the ones who attend the meeting.

The checklist is useful for people who are topic drivers, bosses, project leads, or others who just want to have better meetings. You're the one who takes the lead.

The ultimate goal of this checklist is that knowledge between people builds up and misunderstandings decrease. These factors contribute heavily to uncoordinated, off-topic discussions which are the enemy of effective meetings.

When you, as the meeting moderator, have gone through this checklist you should have enough understanding about the situation so that nothing unexpected comes up in the meeting.

Tips for each point

  1. Read the internet, documentation, source code, books to get an overview. You don't need to be the expert in this topic, you just need to be able to understand the big picture and the people you're going to talk to.
  2. Try to get their opinions, knowledge, preferred solutions. Use other person's statements to discover potential misunderstandings or mismatches in knowledge. Let them speak, you listen! It's all about clearing up misunderstandings and getting a better picture of the problem. Taking notes or drawing diagrams is very helpful for creating the document afterwards.
  3. Your writing should be well-structured so that non-insiders understand the context of the problem and the goal why we work on it. Depending on the problem's size it can be a big document or just notes in a support ticket, etc. Don't create more ceremony than necessary!
  4. Follow up and update it until everyone is happy with the document. No more comments from them means "happy".
  5. You're the moderator. Give brief context about the topic or problem. Present all your current findings and potential solutions (although they have read your writing). Make everyone stick to the topic and guide towards making a decision. Respect the timeframe!

As always, adapt to your needs and figure out what works for you.

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