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One of the keys to successfully leading teams of people is to run effective meetings.  On the surface, this seems pretty straight-forward.  Ensuring you have an agenda, take good meeting notes, and sending action items out afterword aren’t rocket science.   Relatively trivial, even though consistency is key and rarely is delivered.  However, when you are dealing with those recurring tactical meetings, especially ones that occur multiple times per week, the old model falls down.

To begin with, there really isn’t a simple strategy to produce detailed agendas any longer.   Many topics, the critical ones that need to be discussed ASAP, sometimes come up just hours before the meeting.  Furthermore, the priority of the litany of things that are on the list changes at a rapid pace.  Sending anything in or prepping for those discussions can be fruitless at best, and counter-productive at worst.

Enter the “Weekly Tactical” meeting format:
Some of the concepts in this format were adapted from the book, “Death by Meeting” by Patrick Lencioni, but others were evolved on the spot as the need arose.

The basic premise of the Weekly Tactical meeting is to get a group of leaders together to make decisions.  We don’t want to go to meetings to “talk” about decisions, we want to MAKE them.  (After all, that’s one of our core job functions)  So many organizations are plagued by the notion that meetings are simply to “discuss”, not to “do”.  This simple shift alone will increase the effectiveness of most meetings.  The word Tactical, for our team, implies that the scope of topics should cover 1 week from the date of the meeting.  We have 2 Tactical meetings per week that are 1 hour each.

Detailed Overview:
The following photos show the simplicity of the process.  I have a large whiteboard in my office that is refreshed each time we have this meeting.  It has the template written on it and is ready when the team comes in.  The image at the right shows what the layout looks like.  I tend to facilitate the sessions, but now anyone can do it as the process is simple and well understood.

Next let’s break down each section with details.

Lightning Round:

Decencies
We have recently added a kick-off titled “Decencies”.  This is probably the one I’m most excited about, and most proud of.  After re-reading Tom Peters book, “The Little Big Things” last week, I was reminded of the need to refocus our efforts on our people.  I’m leading a group of manages and architects and we tend to get mired in the day to day.  The complexity and pressure for those leaders is immense and it’s easy to get stuck focusing on “work stuff” and neglecting the “people stuff”.  Tom reminded me a second time “it’s all about the people”.  Hence, the “Decencies” kickoff was born.

Essentially we will create actions to recognize the wonderful and talented staff we have and the things they do every day to make all of us successful.  We will also think about ways to remember the Power of Pleasant, how we can connect emotionally with our customers, and hopefully keep some “damned perspective” when the tension escalates.

Topics
We then go to each person and ask for their topics.  If you have an issue or topic that you need help delivering, or you need a team decision, then it’s a good topic for our meeting.  They each have 1 minute (yes, 1 minute) to get through their entire list, along with associated explanations if needed.  We then move to the next person, in order, until we have a list of topics.  We then get started at the top of the list.

Note: we used to prioritize the list, but as of late, we have blown through very large lists so rapidly that we haven’t needed to prioritize.  If we start leaving important stuff undone, we will go back to prioritizing.

Actions and Decisions:

We then take each topic one at a time and attempt to give each topic its due attention.  We are all aware of the need to get to an Action or Decision so we tend not to lollygag.  We will discuss for a while and someone will say, “Do you need us to help choose for you?” or “Is there a next action for this that we can assign to one of us?”  More often than not, the topic simply needed a quick decision and some collaborators to ensure there wasn’t something being missed.  Other times, the issue is a bit more complex and the initiator needed help deciding on the next steps to take.

As we move through the list, the grid in the image to the right begins to unfold.  We assign tasks with associated details, 1 per line until we’re done.  Normally a “decision” is indicated with a task to communicate the decision so we ensure we are communicating those decisions effectively.

Parking Lot:

As a group, we occaisionally bump into a topic that has no simple solution or the right parties aren’t present to discuss.  They also span many teams and possibly a large time horizon.  These issues we deem “strategic” and get placed in the parking lot with associated detail.  We have a few venues that these strategic topics can end up in so we attempt to classify them on the spot

Note: this classification exercise is new.  I will update you on how its going.

The three Strategic Meetings are a “TRI-Weekly” meeting that we prepare for in advance.  It includes both leadership teams in my organization (Development Managers and Enterprise Architecture) as well as any special guests needed to (once again) make decisions on the topic at hand in the meeting.  The second is a “Development Manager” Strategic meeting and the third is ”Architecture” strategic meeting….all similar formats.  I will try and describe these formats in a subsequent post.

Well, there you have it.  This evolved format has helped our team and organization communicate better, make timely decisions, and get aftet the topics we know are critical for success.  With the addition of our Decencies section, it will also help us double down our efforts to remain focused on whats important, our people and their well-being!

I’m a firm believer in “surveying the landscape”. I think the time you invest understanding your clients and customers needs, the better off you are. It’s one of those things that’s just reasonable. Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t pedal solutions before you know the problem you are trying to solve. Which is why what I’m about to say feels blasphemous…

Sometimes it’s just not that hard to understand the real, honest to goodness business issues that are right in front of your face. Furthermore, left unchecked, some could mean curtains for your customers. In that moment, make the tough decision.

For instance, it really doesn’t take much to diagnose a gaping gunshot wound. There is no need to take someones temperature and have someone step on the scales when there is an obvious diagnosis and prescribed course of action. I would classify these types of issues as Organizational Emergencies. These issues need immediate attention! They need decisive action and the trade off between a “timeliness bias” and “consensus building bias” is wildly weighted toward timeliness. If your business problem is of this variety, don’t be afraid to make the tough decision.

In the agile community, we lean toward a complete consensus building model. In my mind, this is a very, very good approach. However, this makes Organization Emergencies more precarious. Often times the process of complete consensus building is near impossible to achieve, and left with the choice of making a tough call or throwing up our hands, we choose the path of least resistance. The typical choice leaders make between errors of commission and errors of omission is to choose omission, every single time (and twice on Monday). After all, we don’t really track this type of error. This makes the process even more difficult to manage and time begins to slip through our fingers.

I truly believe the majority of the decisions organizations need to make have a clear “consensus building” bias. This is why I feel the agile community has it right. But, when you recognize those rare occasions where delay might have dire consequences, find the fortitude to make a decision and trust your instincts.

In a recent session with my Ironman coach, we got on the topic of how she and her husband were building their business, how coaching is a very individualized endeavor and how it doesn’t necessarily “scale”. I didn’t have much insight at the time related to her comment, but it made sense. She and her husband, both professional triathletes and coaches, only have so much time in the day after all.

This discussion got me thinking about the coaching I do in organizations. What makes me successful in my interactions with clients? Why do I prefer the coaching model over consulting (Big-6 style)?

I went home that night and had some further discussion with a friend of mine (Chris) who owns an organization that does business coaching. He had something interesting to say about the subject that proved to be very insightful. I felt like I “knew” the answer, but he made it clear to me after I bent his ear for a good hour. In fact, I say it all the time but it didn’t dawn on me until he reminded me of it. What was that wonderful insight Chris was coaching me to “discover”?

Well, most business owners (in his world), and software executives and managers in mine, need to find that emotional tie to an issue and work out the solutions on their own. If they don’t, and you GIVE them the direction they are seeking (even if you may be right) then you have failed to truly coach. Why? Because you have just put yourself in the distinct position of “owning” the outcome of your direction. If the direction works (and the first few attempts probably won’t) then you were wrong! They knew you were too good to be true!

Another likely scenario is that your direction will take some effort. Maybe it will even take multiple difficult steps. If your clients aren’t emotionally engaged in this decision, they will most likely abandon your suggestions, stop moving forward, and again you’ve lost.

Lastly, and probably worse for clients is you’re direction worked! Eureka! …What’s the problem then? Well, you have just created a dependent, complete with all the “frozen and can’t make a decision” trappings you can expect when the next issue comes along.

So what’s a better approach. As Chris puts it, “act like a coach and not like a consultant”. Get to the heart of the emotion with your clients. If the answer is obvious (to you), don’t jump directly to it without first helping lead the others toward the answer and let them discover it on their own. Their hard work and persistence will pay off and you won’t rob them of the engagement they so desperately need to make the difficult, and sometimes emotional journey to solving their own problems and thinking on their own.

Coaches do things this way because they know you have to perform when they aren’t around to help. Consultants on the other hand will happily answer all of your questions and bill you hourly when you come back to sit at their feet.