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I recently wrote a Simple Programmer post about how to Protect Your Productive Time<\/a>, in which I covered many of the reasons why most developers \u2014 and many other workers in knowledge-based industries \u2014 can\u2019t seem to get enough done in time.\\n\\nIn most cases, the problem lies not in the amount of work they have to do, but in how they choose to invest their time.\\n\\nHow much can you do in a year? I consider myself a very productive person. For example, over the past year, I worked on enterprise search consulting with Solr and SolrNet; ran my own small support center; managed my micro hosting company that leverages AWS, Azure, and Rackspace; created a few training modules for Pluralsight; wrote a book for SyncFusion; delivered a few public speaking engagements and training for the Atlanta.NET User Group LIDNUG and Search Technologies; led development of my SaaS solution for used car dealerships; developed the next version of my VIN application www.consultesuvin.com<\/a>; and, on top of this, continued being a dad of two extremely active little girls, as well as a very helpful husband.\\n\\nNevertheless, I\u2019m put to shame by John Sonmez\u2019s feat of creating a staggering number of training modules for Pluralsight<\/a>–55 of them–in only a year and a bit more.\\n\\nAs a fellow trainer with John, I attended an open space with him this year at Pluralsight\u2019s author summit, where he walked me and a few other authors through the steps to supercharge programmer productivity. To be honest, I was impressed.\\n\\nBut being impressed hasn\u2019t helped me much. Rather, it\u2019s been taking John\u2019s advice to apply my own personal experience to meet day to day challenges that\u2019s made all the difference for me. (For those of you who have not yet attended an open space with John, you can learn his method in his recently released course: 10 Steps to Learn Anything<\/a>.)\\n\\nSo, let me offer you some tips and point out some areas of potential improvement for increasing your productivity. One of my main suggestions in my previous post was to minimize meeting time and instead focus on getting things done.\\n\\nThis was a tricky proposition, as meetings cannot just be skipped altogether. Meetings can be a powerful way of reaching consensus, communicating progress, and, as per the cliche, getting everyone on the same page.\\n\\nI\u2019ve also written a few times before on this topic, for Pluralsight\u2019s<\/a> blog on tips for meetings<\/a>, for my personal blog about my take on meetings<\/a>, and how to make your meetings rock<\/a>.\\n\\nHowever, I wanted to write this follow up post to cover how to improve productivity in your day to day meetings in more detail .\\n\\n<\/p>\nMeetings: The Green Eyed Useful Monster<\/h1>\n
\\n\\nMeetings are a double edged sword. They can be extremely beneficial, or they can be a great time waster.\\n\\nIndeed, meetings are so consistently abused that my Outlook often cringes in pain!\\n\\nSometimes I\u2019ve felt as if I\u2019ve been party to a meeting inception. Have you ever seen the movie Inception<\/i> where people get in other people\u2019s dreams and then go one more level into the dreams within dreams? \u00a0That\u2019s how it makes me feel!\\n\\nIn some of the projects that I have participated, it even feels like we have meetings to plan for meetings!\\n\\nEternal d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. A glitch in the Matrix?\\n\\nMost commonly, meetings are called to discuss issues that might not yet merit a meeting. In these scenarios, attendees are typically confronted with a set of unclear objectives, which are presented to far more people than are actually needed for the proposed initiative. Let\u2019s dissect this idea.\\n\\n<\/p>\nInviting Unneeded Talent<\/h2>\n
\\n\\nHow many times have you been in a meeting and you see people staring directly at their laptop typing from time to time, appearing to be in their own personal bubble? What are these people actually up to? Three possibilities come to my mind:\\n\\n<\/p>\n
- \\n<\/p>\n
- \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They might be watching Facebook\/Twitter\/CNN\/Insert-Your-Personal-Time-Waster-Here.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
\\n<\/p>\n
- \n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They are working. They had been trying to get stuff done, but they were summoned to attend this meeting, where they may or may not be needed. However, as we all know, declining meetings can be thought of by some managers as impolite, or even a sign of \u201cnot being committed to the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
\\n<\/p>\n
- \n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They are active in the meeting, and they are trying to find a valuable piece of evidence to present to the team.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
\\n<\/ul>\n
\\n\\n<\/p>\n
What percentage of the time do you think each one occurs? I leave this to you to decide, but I\u2019ve arranged it to descend from most likely to least likely.\\n\\n
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Consider this. \u00a0Time goes in parallel in meetings. Think of it in terms of billable time. If you summon 10 people into a room for a 1 hour meeting then it is not a 1 hour meeting. It is a 1 x 10 hour meeting. You just took away 10 hours of productivity time, or 10 billable hours, from a project. Let\u2019s run some hypothetical numbers just for fun. If each person in that room is billed at $165 an hour, then your meeting just cost $1,650! You could\u2019ve bought a new Lenovo Carbon X1 laptop with that time! And that’s a pretty nice laptop, I must say.\\n\\nHow do we avoid this kind of waste? The first step is for the meeting organizer to invite only those that are absolutely required. Sometimes a general distribution list is set up, for example the Team Leads DL, and everyone is invited. This may be necessary for weekly checkpoints, where the meeting\u2019s purpose is general review to make sure everyone is in sync. \u00a0For more specific issues, however, you should involve only the people that have something of value to add in that specific meeting.\\n\\nAnd how do you determine this? Well, it is easy.\\n\\n<\/p>\nClearly Defined Meeting Agenda and Objectives<\/h2>\n
\\n\\nMeetings are sometimes used by some as a way to appear busy. For them, attending a meeting is working. Do not fall into the trap of imagining an equivalency between meetings and work. Attending the meeting and being busy aren\u2019t really the same as being productive. This mistake is common among underachievers who are big talkers. You may have noticed this group often includes managers. We all know a few.\\n\\nBefore you select who to invite, you need to have a clearly defined meeting agenda with a list of objectives.\\n\\nBut more important this, ensure that it\u2019s crucial that the meeting take place. If the objective is not immediately important or required, then simply defer it until it is the right time.\\n\\nA meeting without a clearly defined agenda typically ends up going on a tangent. Time is needlessly consumed and, very often, a follow up meeting is required<\/i><\/b>. There\u2019s another potential laptop lost to a useless meeting.\\n\\nA good tip, especially when you are starting to make meeting objectives very clear, is to use a board for tracking the progress of your meeting\u2019s objectives, ideally a Kanban <\/a>board. It helps track progress so that all objectives are visually clear and a feeling of productivity is felt as you move along.\\n\\n<\/p>\n
Scheduling Meetings<\/h2>\n
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Be sensitive to your team\u2019s needs when you\u2019re preparing to schedule the meeting. I understand how hard it is to work around everybody\u2019s busy schedule. Depending on your specific role, you will view time in a unique way. A developer needs uninterrupted focus to be productive and create, whereas a manager\u2019s responsibilities involve knowing what the developers are working on, so managers tend to view time in a different way.\\n\\nNevertheless, it is necessary to find a way for both of them to work harmoniously and get all their stuff done. This is why meetings are essential to meet production goals.\\n\\nWhen it comes to scheduling meetings, try to find a time that allows for developers to maximize productive time.\\n\\nA good strategy is to schedule meetings at the start\/end of the day or before\/after lunch. This protects blocks of productive time in the middle of the morning and afternoon.\\n\\nWhich brings me to my next tip: establish a working agreement to protect core working hours.\\n\\nThis is a practice that many organizations employ, wherein a team sets a schedule determining when meetings may be held. The schedule is respected both by the team and other bodies within the organization.\\n\\nHere\u2019s an example of a working agreement:\\n\\nBig Data Inc. team\u2019s daily scrum is at 8:30 am every day. From 8:45 am to 9 am all emails and inquiries will be responded to. Then, the team goes into core working hours from 9 am to 11:30 am.<\/i>\\n\\nDuring core working hours, all team members will focus on work items and bugs based on priority, critical, and high defects first. Important features are next in line. Further, during core working hours, developers will focus 100%, leaving IM, emails, and meetings until after core working hours are done.<\/i>\\n\\nAdditional focused time can be scheduled individually by team members in the afternoon, priorities withstanding. The only exception is when there is a critical emergency that needs to be addressed and can\u2019t wait. For example, a production down incident, in which case only specific and required team members may be required to help<\/i>\\n\\nAlso be mindful that even during non-core working hours, you should interrupt developers as little as possible. As I said it before, developers need blocks of uninterrupted time to design\/create software or fix bugs. Conversely, managers tend to see their time as 30 minute or 1 hour blocks that are perfect for scheduling meetings.\\n\\nFor the sake of both ensuring productivity and making sure everyone is working together, a balance must be created.\\n\\n<\/p>\nTalkers vs. Doers<\/h2>\n
\\n\\nWe\u2019ve all worked with very different kinds of developers. We all know the guy who is really good at talking, but usually doesn\u2019t work much and instead gets others to do his work.\\n\\nThen there\u2019s the guy that sits quietly in a corner not saying much, but works like an ant.\\n\\nWhen both attend a meeting, it will very likely be the Talker who takes the microphone and rants for a while–often about things that aren\u2019t relevant to the meeting. At this point, the guy who needed to talk, the Doer, sits quietly in a corner.\\n\\nHow does a meeting organizer manage these different types of people to ensure they\u2019re contributing meaningfully to the meeting and getting the most out of their coworkers\u2019 contributions?\\n\\nWell, first of all, you should have an agenda, so stick to it to limit the potential for others to go off on a tangent.\\n\\nAnd second, on each point of the agenda, the meeting organizer must make sure that all parties involved in the issue under discussion speak their mind.\\n\\nThis can be tricky, but it\u2019s fully achievable.\\n\\n<\/p>\n
Action Items and Objectives<\/h2>\n
\\n\\nWhen your meeting is over, your team should have an actionable outcome or have made a decision regarding the points under discussion.\\n\\nIf a decision can\u2019t be made over one or more meetings, you might be going directly into \u201canalysis paralysis\u201d.\\n\\nI\u2019ve been in that frustrating situation where repeated meetings never brought the team closer to a solution. It was like being on the set of Groundhog Day, but in a billion dollar corporation! Again, a lot of everybody\u2019s time is being wasted.\\n\\nIf you keep having the same meetings again and again, reinforce the advice that I just offered and escalate if need be. Rinse, wash, repeat, and tame the green-eyed useful monster: meetings!\\n\\nDo your best to make progress and move forward.\\n\\n<\/p>\n
Summary<\/h1>\n
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Let\u2019s summarize some of the points that I covered:\\n\\n<\/p>\n