Suggested Template For Meeting Requests

Every time someone calls a meeting, they should consider using this simple template.

[meeting-invitation-template begins]

The desired outcome of this meeting is…

• e.g. Come to agreement on solution for issue X
• e.g. Make a decision about Y.
• e.g. Share announcements about topic Z.
• e.g. Continue to grow a good working relationship with each other by socializing in person.

Note: Explain what this meeting is meant to accomplish, instead of providing a description of the meeting. Focus on the desired result of the meeting. A meeting should accomplish one or more of three things:

1. Solve problem(s)
2. Make decision(s)
3. Share knowledge and agree to act on it and/or make it a practice
• Knowledge, as in: data –leads-to–> information –leads-to–> knowledge –leads-to–> practice

You should come to this meeting because…

• e.g. You are likely to have input into potential solutions for issue X
• e.g. You are one of the folks who has a viewpoint on what decision to make regarding Y.
• e.g. It would benefit you from hearing the announcements in this meeting.
• e.g. This is your opportunity to ask questions about topic Z.

Note: Give the attendees at least one good reason to attend. Sometimes attendees have no idea why they are invited to this meeting. Don’t be seen as a waster of others’ time.

The guidelines for participating in this meeting are…

• e.g. Please come prepared having read the document about ChaosMonkey.
• e.g. Laptops & mobile communication devices are considered contraband during this meeting. If it is critical for you to have a computer during this meeting, bring a desktop computer :-)

Note: Set the expectations of the participations.

[meeting-invitation-template ends]

A discussion on this template: https://plus.google.com/107443707510532643538/posts/WBov1aLx9QD

An example staff meeting using this template: https://plus.google.com/107443707510532643538/posts/YuGSUuCh7w8

 50/25 Meeting Format

If you manage a team, value your team members time and want to improve productivity at your workplace with a simple change, consider implementing the 50/25 Meeting Recommendation that some companies are embracing. You can communicate something like the following to your team:

Dear Colleagues,

We deeply value your time, your productivity and your comfort at the workplace. As a part of our initiative to make your workday more productive, less hectic and better manageable, we recommend a 50/25 meeting format. It is simple concept: As much as possible, let us take all our meetings that are 1-hour long and shorten them to 50 minutes. For our meetings that are half-hour long, let us limit them to 25 minutes.

You will find that a 50 minute meeting will accomplish no less than a 60 minute meeting did and a 25 minute meeting will be as productive as a 30 minute one was. In fact, by having clear 50 minute and 25 minute deadlines, our meetings are likely to be better focused, on topic and more attentive. (For example: Since you will have time after the meeting to check email, there is likely to be less temptation to check emails during the meeting itself.)

The extra 10 and 5 minutes will give you valuable time back that could be used for many useful activities: Getting in the frame of mind for the next meeting or task; checking your messages to see if there is something urgent that needs your attention; or simply taking a bio break.

Please note that this not a mandate, but a recommendation. We realize that you may not be able to do this for every meeting. What we ask is that you consider doing this for meetings that you organize or can influence. As a result, we will make our great work culture even better, less stressful and even fun.

Further Reading & Thoughts:

* NYTimes article about Larry Page, Google’s founder and new CEO instituting the same 50/25 meeting recommendation at Google:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/technology/googles-chief-works-to-trim-a-bloated-ship.html?pagewanted=all

* If a meeting accomplishes all its goals in even less than the 50 or 25 minutes, please, by all means end the meeting even sooner.

* We suggest that you do book the full hour or half hour in the calendar even as you implement the above so that others don’t schedule over the “10 minutes left over” in your calendar.

Thank you for considering this,

[Signature]

A discussion about this 50/25 Meeting Format: https://plus.google.com/107443707510532643538/posts/AtYgnmbhtqc

When to have and when not to schedule meetings

Companies should, by default, avoid scheduling meetings that start before 10am or end after 5pm. If an employee comes to the office at 8am on some days, it is often to use the two hours of the morning before meetings to catch up and/or get a head start on the day. Meetings that start before 10am are often harmful overall since they put the attendees in reactive catch up mode for the rest of the day. Similarly, meetings that go on beyond 5pm (or worse, start after 5pm) take away valuable time from employees that they use to absorb information and events of the day, catch up with replying to email and get ready for the next work day.

i.e. Companies should consider any time outside the 10am to 5pm window to be not available for meetings and definitely not any weekly recurring meetings.

Preferably, employees who are ‘makers’ should have one 4-hour continuous block of time each day when they are free from meetings. (‘Makers’ differentiated from ‘Managers’)

What Meetings to Attend and a Polite Way to Decline Meetings

As much as possible, we should only attend meetings where we are active participants, not mere attendees with nothing to contribute to the defined outcome of the meeting. There are some exceptions to this like training sessions, educational presentations or others where the purpose for attendees is to learn something.
Time Management Tip: When you receive an invite for a meeting at work where you believe you may not add much value, reply to the invite with a polite message like:

Thank you for inviting me to this meeting. It seems from the subject, agenda and attendees list that I’m not a required participant for this meeting. If I’m mistaken and my presence is required in this meeting, please accept my apologies and let me know that I should attend.

This is preferable to ignoring the meeting invite or declining without comment that may come across as rude.

Discussion about declining meetings: https://plus.google.com/107443707510532643538/posts/inUkYy1Ufg7

Laptops, Smartphones and Other Communications Devices in Meetings

It has been common for over a decade to find people reading and responding to emails on their smartphones in all sorts of situations, including during business meetings. This question, however, is not about smartphones: It is about use of laptop computers during meetings.

In what types of meetings and situations do you consider laptop usage to be acceptable?

There are some situations, where it seems to make good sense:

+ Note taking during meetings: Saves time wasted transcribing later and better than having notes on paper which can’t be searched easily and piles up as clutter.
+ More secure than taking notes on paper that can be forgotten and read by others who should not have access to the information.
+ Quickly looking something up that is relevant to the discussion
+ Entering action items that come up during the meeting into your to-do-list (especially useful for GTD system users, e.g. OmniFocus.)
+ Meeting notes and action items can be automatically backed up in real time.
+ Quickly and discreetly asking a question, or sharing an opinion or information over instant message without disturbing others in the meeting.
+ Environmentally friendly, saves paper
+ As for distractions, the user can be disciplined and focus on the meeting. Perhaps even using the laptop to participate more actively in the meeting. (Even a person using pen and paper can be distracted doodling or daydreaming.)
+ This is the digital age.

There are also some reasons not in favor of using laptops during meetings:
- It comes across as disrespectful to some other meeting attendees, especially those with traditional styles of working.
- The laptop screen creates a “wall” between you and the people sitting across you.
- The laptop does make it easy to get distracted into reading your email or other online activities. (A tablet like the iPad that lies flat on the table like a writing pad does not have this problem.)

Are there certain situations where it should be ok? For example: Large group meetings, small team meetings? Meetings with certain types of people? …?

Here is what I personally do: When I bring a laptop to a group meeting or one-on-one meeting, each time I respectfully explain to the others beforehand that I’ll use the laptop for taking notes and recording action items in my to do list only. I inform them that I will be focusing attention on the discussion and that the laptop is simply my digital notepad.

A discussion about using laptops, smartphones and other communications devices in meetings: https://plus.google.com/107443707510532643538/posts/NZ9NqEA7PVu

Related Posts:

• Organizing a Digital Technology Department of Medium Size in a Media Company
• Project Management: Time to Market, People & Teamwork
• Trinity Method of Technology Management
• Technology, Innovation and Business Decisions
• Organizing a Digital Technology Department in a Media Company By Functional Areas

[memo begins]

Loose your ego

Leadership isn’t about you or what you can do and rarely are people motivated to make you look good. It’s all about what you can do for your team. The team needs direction and something to achieve for you. You could almost think of yourself as the helpless grandparent who has work to do and lavishes accolades whenever one of those items gets completed. It may strike some as odd, but most people are eager to please and get a great deal of satisfaction knowing they completed something of meaning. Often the work you have to offer can lack significant meaning in and off itself. So, as the leader, you can provide meaning or significance where none exists. It can also be your responsibility to paint a picture or create the mission.

In the past, when faced with an impossible task of creating meaning in completely insignificant work, I found I could inspire the team by getting them to focus on creating very elegant code. Since the result of the work was clearly not fulfilling, I reasoned with the team that producing the most elegant code would be fulfilling. The tactic got the team past the barrier and gave them the motivation to finish the required work. I really doubt I could have had the same success by appealing to get the work done just so I would look good.

Get to know your team, learn about them

It’s really important to take the time to know the people who work for you. Even if you have a hard time opening up to people, you need still to make the effort. Generally, people really appreciate that you actually take time to get to know them. For each person that reports to you, do you know if they are single/married? Do they have children, grandchildren? What do they like to do outside of work? What is the person passionate about? All of these are really good, safe questions to get answers to. The more you get to know the person, the more of a connection you will have. Essentially, you are building a bond of trust and mutual respect and maybe even friendship.

Listen and listen well

Listening is one of the most important skills you can learn. Yes you can learn to be a good listener with practice, patience and perseverance. Never, ever listen to formulate an answer for someone. I’m sure you can remember more than one time when you raised an issue or made a statement and there was that genius in the room who retorted a quick “You should just do ….”  Personally, people like that are never ever helpful and worse yet, they get me upset and I instantly loose a percentage of respect for the person.

When someone else is speaking to you, make every effort to understand what that person is saying to you. Try not to interrupt and let that person complete their thought. When the person has completed their thought, try and repeat back to that person what they said e.g. “So, what you’re trying to say is…” or “If I heard you correctly, you’re saying…” The general idea is to repeat back to the person what they said thus making a reasonable effort to demonstrate that you have heard and understood. By asking, you give the person you’re speaking with the opportunity to clarify their point to their satisfaction.

The next step in listening is to make that split decision to offer a suggestion or sympathy. What is often missed, is that many times someone is raising an issue in an effort to find someone who can sympathize with him or her or offer a little empathy. They may feel they are the only person with the current concern. Most people aren’t usually looking for you to give an answer either, so it can help to ask additional questions for clarity after you have communicated that you understand how they feel. e.g. That’s got to be really frustrating.  Yeah, that would upset me too. Those types of statements can really help communicate a level of understanding or empathy, and that may be all the person is after.

Always take the blame; never take the credit. Take the heat for the team and give the team all the credit.

Nothing makes a group despise their leader/boss/manager more than watching them take all the credit and blame anyone else for the failures. Maybe that’s a little harsh, but it’s really important to create a safety zone for your team where they know that you have their back. I like to think of this as the “obsessive parent” sometimes. My kids can do no wrong when their exposed to the world, but when we get back to the house we talk. In much the same way, taking the blame for your staff does not mean letting things slide. It means that you take the blame in the eyes of your boss but take the team or the team member aside to coach and mentor. When addressing issues, it is often better to address the issue instead of assigning blame e.g. “Our last release had too many bugs that could have been caught that is causing too many distractions. What can we do to improve?”

If you have a team that is struggling to succeed, is it really the team’s fault or is it your fault as the team leader? If you’re honest with yourself, the problem always lies in the leader. It’s your responsibility to identify the problems, come up with remedies and implement. Until identified problems are resolved, you are better served by taking the blame. It will give you credibility with your team and those you report to because it shows a level of maturity, competence and sacrifice.

Treat everyone with respect

This isn’t limited to your team in any way. Its important to treat your team with respect and dignity all of the time. Do not belittle them. Do not disregard them. Do not take them for granted. When you treat others with respect and dignity you are then seen in a positive light as someone who is respectful.

When looked from another angle or from the negative, you want to avoid being known as someone who has no respect for others, you will be avoided like the plague. Disrespecting or disregarding people is a recipe for failure.

Find someone and something to praise every day

People have a natural desire for recognition. They want to know that the work they perform has meaning and is valued. Most will not come out and ask for praise, but everyone, no matter how much they profess to the contrary, actually appreciate recognition and genuine praise.

Sure, there may be people who are so upset or jaded that you begin to doubt if it matters much if you give thanks or congratulate them. However, I would argue there is simply more work to accomplish before praising offers any significant value to them. That jaded person is simply the result of previous leadership failures and requires a lot of effort on your part before this tactic works.

Use constructive criticism. Never shoot down ideas

Really, don’t ever just tell someone they’re wrong or what they’re thinking won’t work out of hand. That kind of behavior will just kill a person’s desire to think outside of the box or to even come up with anything creative. They will quickly start to think, “Why bother?”

I once worked with a boss who was masterful at getting me to see the flaws in my plans without ever telling me something wouldn’t work. Whenever I came up with an answer that had a flaw, he would ask me questions about my direction that illuminated a problem I was unaware of e.g. “How will your solution stay within constraint…?” It was a really powerful technique that provided many additional benefits. I usually learned something I wasn’t aware of, maybe in the business or the platform, I was able to “save face” and wasn’t put off or discouraged from trying to solve a problem or be creative.

Offer up challenges and don’t do the work

Software developers like to solve problems and I will bet that most of them actually love solving problems. It’s your job to give them something to solve and follow the advice on constructive criticism. Whenever you have something that needs to be done, try really, really hard NOT to come up with a solution. No one likes to be given something to implement – there’s no fun at all and it does very little to stimulate the team. It may take a little more effort on your part, but instead of giving them something to build, give them a challenge with measures of success. They may or may not come up with the solution you thought or be done in the way you would do it, but if it solves the problem with all of the constraints you listed, then let it go (see first point on ego)

Help everyone

I have found nothing better to gain influence like helping others. A good leader is always looking to help, to be a person of service. Nothing is more indispensable like a helpful person. Help usually does not mean doing someone’s work for him or her, but it can be, especially if the team is on a tight deadline. When leading a team of software developers that has too much work to do, I recommend taking on all of the worst tasks. Aspiring developers want the cherry work, the stuff that will get them noticed. If you take that work away and leave them the drudgery, it won’t make you any friends. Remember that it’s not about you, it’s about creating a team that loves to work for you. So, if you take away the garbage and leave them the fun stuff, you’re definitely helping.

[memo ends]

(Posted with permission.)

Related Posts:

• What is Leadership?
• Project Management: Time to Market, People & Teamwork
• Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team
• Organizing a Digital Technology Department of Medium Size in a Media Company
• Trinity Method of Technology Management

We often see people including their Twitter usernames ( e.g. twitter:@rajivpant) as contact info on presentations, business cards and email signatures.

Would Twitter ‘s username convention of @rajivpant have been better if it had evolved as rajivpant@ , with the @ sign at the end instead of beginning? That would have been more consistent with email and one could take it as shorthand for rajivpant@twitter ( or in this proposed sn: format, for sn:rajivpant@twitter.com )

That way, on Twitter posts (tweets), you could refer to a user as rajivpant@ (implying @twitter as the default). On posts on other sites, you could refer to the user as rajivpant@twitter and still have it link to the user’s page on Twitter (and potentially also notify them on that service). That way, we’d have a consistent person naming and linking convention across social networks or blogs. E.g. rajiv.pant@facebook , rajiv.pant@google

I’ve omitted the “.com” domain name suffix above to avoid confusion with email addresses, but an alternative to that could be to have social network URLs like sn:rajivpant@twitter.com where sn:would be a universal social network protocol handler that would be distinct from the email URL syntax of mailto:rajiv.pant@example.com . It would avoid the need of per-site handlers like twitter:@rajivpant that are becoming common.

One benefit of having the @ (or + in Google+) at the beginning is that the text editor can start to autocomplete the name for you. However, that convenience could still exist in other ways. For example, if you type a special character sequence like sn: , it can start showing you names and just insert it using the username@ format instead. In fact, it could even show you names from your connections on other social networks!

In your contacts (e.g. MacOS Address Book), you could then enter someone’s social network addresses using the sn: URL format. When someone clicks on a sn: link, the URL handler would first look to see if there is registered custom app for that domain name (e.g. Twitter client on MacOS or iOS) and then launch that app. If no app is registered for that social network’s domain, it would map it to an http: URL like https://twitter.com/#!/rajivpant , https://www.facebook.com/rajiv.pant or https://profiles.google.com/rajiv.pant
This would avoid site specific URL formats like twitter:@rajivpant

For brevity, the URLs could simply be in the format sn:username@twitter , sn:username@facebook , sn:username@linkedin and sn:user.name@google If such shorter forms are adopted, then each social network’s brand name would be registered via a system of registries or it could default to .com if the full domain name isn’t specified.

Related Posts:

• Social Graphs API: WordPress Plugin: Blogroll Links
• Friends and Social Networks
• Contact Info
• iGo Universal Charging Adapters for Multiple Devices (Product Review)
• Charity & Social Work

• You manage all aspects of technology for a major digital brand or for a large company with 3 or more Web sites.
• You lead a technology department of between 50 to 250 staff.
• Internal corporate IT functions such as desktop support, telecommunications services and internal business systems are beyond the scope of this article.

Click on the diagram above to view it as a zooming presentation

The following are seven areas that the CTO heading up such a technology department in a media company is typically responsible for.

Digital Technology Department in a Media Company – By Functional Areas

Each of the seven areas contains the following functions.

1.  More articles related to Scrum teams.

Related Posts:

• Organizing a Digital Technology Department of Medium Size in a Media Company
• Management & Technical Career Growth Tracks
• Trinity Method of Technology Management
• Some Pathways for Career Development in a Product Engineering Organization
• Productive Business Meetings

When stakeholders, executives and team members have confidence in the abilities of a leader/manager, it results in their lending greater support to that leader/manager. It also tends to make them more forgiving of mistakes made by the leader. Both of these things result in better performance, effectiveness and results from the leader. That, in turn causes the stakeholders, executives and team members to have even greater confidence in the abilities of the leader. This causal loop scenario is good for the leader’s career.

In the study of System Dynamics, this would be called a reinforcing loop as illustrated in the diagram. This is an example of applying Systems Thinking to a workplace scenario.

The reverse of this also holds. When stakeholders, executives and team members don’t have faith in a manager, it results in them not lending their support and effort to the project being led by the manager. It also causes them to be unforgiving when the manager makes mistakes. Those things result in problems and the project performing poorly. That, in turn results in the people having even less faith and confidence in the manager.

A manager needs to break out of such an undesirable reinforcing loop situation before it results in his/her downfall.

The ways out of such situations include:

• The executives replace the manager. However, this is often an undesirable result for the manager.
• The manager has the team work on some tasks in the project that he/she has a high probability of making successful. These help the manager gain the confidence of others.
• The manager starts to perform other things well that help build confidence in his/her management qualities. For example, becoming highly responsive to emails and requests, following up after meetings and discussions, etc.
• The manager starts to meet constructively and regularly with executives, stakeholders and team members one on one with the goal of developing and maintaining relationships of trust with them.

Related Posts:

• What is Leadership?
• Consumers, Confidence & the Economy: What You Can Do to Help
• Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team
• Productive Business Meetings
• Owning vs. Renting Software

Shorter paths (fewer arrows along the way) do not indicate a quicker career growth path. To the contrary, often gaining experience in multiple areas helps develop as a well-rounded executive prepared for senior leadership roles.

Certain roles are not listed explicitly but are combined into other roles in this illustration. For example, the roles of Security are merged into Systems in this view. Also, roles like Senior Engineer and Lead Engineer are not shown separately, but covered by Engineer and Engineering Manager. Similarly, Senior Manager and Senior Director are also not shown separately. Incorporating that level of detail would have significantly increased the complexity and decreased the readability of the diagram.

Related Posts:

• Management & Technical Career Growth Tracks
• Organizing a Digital Technology Department of Medium Size in a Media Company
• Organizing a Digital Technology Department in a Media Company By Functional Areas
• CAREER-CLEAR: An Employee Evaluation and Career Development System
• Trinity Method of Technology Management

Sarah Chubb Sauvayre, President, Conde Nast Digital managed Rajiv at Conde Nast

Related Posts:

• Jessica Perry, Vice President, Product Planning/Management, Conde Nast Digital
• Janet Kasdan, Director of Technology, Conde Nast Digital
• Joe Danyliw, Tech Manager, Conde Nast Publications
• Oscar Sumano, Associate Director, Technology Operations, Conde Nast
• Ted Nadeau, SVP, General Manager, CondeNet, Conde Nast

Janet Kasdan, Director of Technology, Conde Nast Digital, reported to Rajiv at Conde Nast

Related Posts:

• Oscar Sumano, Associate Director, Technology Operations, Conde Nast
• Sarah Chubb Sauvayre, President, Conde Nast Digital
• Kiran Patel, Web Application Developer, Conde Nast
• Spencer Portee, Software Architect/Tech Lead, Conde Nast
• Jessica Perry, Vice President, Product Planning/Management, Conde Nast Digital

Jessica Perry, Vice President, Product Planning/Management, Conde Nast Digital, worked directly with Rajiv at Conde Nast

Related Posts:

• Sarah Chubb Sauvayre, President, Conde Nast Digital
• Janet Kasdan, Director of Technology, Conde Nast Digital
• Joe Danyliw, Tech Manager, Conde Nast Publications
• Kiran Patel, Web Application Developer, Conde Nast
• Susan Kaplow, Executive Editor, Syndication and Web Development, Conde Nast

Susan Kaplow, Executive Editor, Syndication and Web Development, Conde Nast
worked with Rajiv at Conde Nast

Related Posts:

• Ted Nadeau, SVP, General Manager, CondeNet, Conde Nast
• Joe Danyliw, Tech Manager, Conde Nast Publications
• Sarah Chubb Sauvayre, President, Conde Nast Digital
• Kiran Patel, Web Application Developer, Conde Nast
• Jessica Perry, Vice President, Product Planning/Management, Conde Nast Digital