Meeting Guidelines

Meetings & meeting types

What is a meeting?

A meeting is a scheduled calendar event where people come together to figure something out, make decisions, or align on important matters.

What is not a meeting?

• Hopping on a quick call to collaborate or brainstorm.
• Pair programming or working through code together. That’s just teamwork.

Meeting types

There are many different types of meeting, which influence their nature. They can broadly be grouped into the following categories:

1. Decision making
   • Where a specific decision needs to be made as the primary outcome.
2. Design & problem solving
   • Where the outcome is to identify possible solutions to problems
3. Communication, learning & alignment
   • Where information is shared to and the outcome is to create alignment or improve group knowledge
4. Connection
   • Where the outcome is to strengthen relationship and build culture

Meetings that attempt to combine multiple categories may suffer from lack of clarity or struggle to reach a meaningful outcome.

In addition, meetings have other common qualities, such as:

• Strategic or tactical
• Recurring or one-off
• Facilitated, chaired, or collaborative
• Pre-read required
• Synchronous or asynchronous

Guidelines for meetings

General guidance

• Objective oriented: Meetings should always state their objective(s), so that everyone is clear what the group aims to achieve.
• End 5 minutes early: Meetings of 30 minutes or more should end 5 minutes early by default.
• Breaks for long meetings: If your meeting goes beyond an hour, include a 5-10 minute break every 45-60 minutes.
• Accept/decline meetings: Respond to invites promptly ("Accept and send response"). If you can't make it, decline so people aren't left guessing.

Before the meeting

Objective & format

1. An objective should be shared when the meeting is initially booked.

   • A clear meeting objective is more important than an agenda.
   • A good meeting objective should describe both the purpose (why you're meeting) and the outcome (what success looks like).
   • If the objective isn’t clear, the meeting probably isn’t necessary.

   Examples:

   • "To align on product priorities for the next sprint, so that we can create a plan."
   • "To discuss and create a better understanding of problem X, and identify next steps."

2. Determine and communicate an appropriate format:

   • Short meetings are not better than long ones, it is more important to make the meeting effective rather than quick.
   • In person meetings are better for longer meetings or complicated and complex issues.
   • "Async" meetings often work well for simple decisions and communications, and can remove scheduling issues.

Attendees

• Make it clear if attendance is required or optional.
• Make it clear if attendees can be added by others (forwarding) or requested.
• Establish roles where needed, if a facilitator or minute-taker is needed, ask someone to take on the role beforehand and outline it in the invite.

Agenda & flexibility

• Agendas are useful for many meeting types, especially tactical ones.
• Where possible, allow agendas to be flexible to enable real-time adjustments.
• Sharing agendas in advance can help everyone prepare effectively.

Pre-meeting materials

• Share relevant documents, data, or context well in advance if possible.
• For meetings with deep context (strategy, planning), consider a short read-ahead memo.
• Alternatively, adopt the "Amazon style" – spend the first 5-10 minutes reading together in silence before discussion.
• Be considerate of the time and context switching burden, your priorities aren't the same as others.

During the meeting

Start strong

• Restate the meeting objective.
• Summarise the purpose and any key background points.

Chairs, facilitators and note takers

• Assign a chair or facilitator to:
  • keep the meeting focused and on track.
  • capture and share outcomes, decisions, and actions
  • Tips:
  • Use time-boxing to ensure each topic gets appropriate attention.
  • If decisions are needed, allocate time for debate and resolution.
  • Record the meeting if appropriate.
• Assign a note taker if required to:
  • Keep a record of the conversation, to provide context for actions and decisions
• Consider using transcriptions instead of a note taker, as it is hard to participate in fluid conversations while capturing notes.

Encourage healthy conflict and foster inclusion

• Actively seek out diverse perspectives and healthy ideological conflict by mining for conflict.
  • For example, ask: "What’s the counterpoint to this idea?" or "Is there a risk we’re overlooking?"
• Allow space for all voices.
  • Use workshopping techniques such as structured turns, hand-raising in virtual calls, or break-out groups
  • Practice active listening, repeat back what you have understood to produce clarity.
• Psychological safety leads to better outcomes. Debate ideas, not people.
• Encourage colleagues to contribute in ways that work for them. Sometimes typing something in the chat is easier.

Minimise slides

• Use PowerPoint or slides sparingly. Prioritise discussion over presentation.
• Slides often shift attention away from discussion. Use them to support, not lead, the conversation.
• If slides are needed, keep them short and sharp. Don't read from them.

Action-oriented mindset

• Apply a bias towards action. Keep discussions time bound and move to decisions and determining actions:
  • Identify clear decisions.
  • Assign actions and owners.
  • Clarify targets and deadlines.

Stay focused

• Stick to the objective. If tangents arise, note them and return to them later.
• Park non-urgent or off-topic discussions for follow-up.

Finish on time

• Respect people's calendars and energy.
• If needed, schedule a follow-up rather than overrunning.

After the meeting

Record outcomes, decisions & actions

• Summarise and share with attendees promptly after the meeting:
• the outcome and key takeaways
• actions including owners and timelines.
• meeting notes (if taken)
• Capture important decisions in the Decision Log

Feedback and improvement

• Gather feedback to help improve future meetings of this nature
• Regularly evaluate if recurring meetings are:
  • Still required
  • Still effective

Hybrid and virtual meetings

Check out AM's guidelines for effective virtual and hybrid meetings.

In addition, as a department we suggest the bellow:

Use video thoughtfully

Cameras are encouraged to help foster better collaboration, but not always required. Certain types of meetings and conversations benefit from visual cues more than others.

• Attendees should be considerate of their colleagues ability to engage.
• Meeting organisers should be considerate of camera fatigue.
• Where appropriate, it is great to let individuals choose. Where cameras are essential, it is best to make this clear in advance.

Use collaboration tools

• Whiteboards (e.g. MS Whiteboard or Miro) for collaboration.
• Notes & lists (e.g. Loop, Azure DevOps, MS To Do, or MS Planner) for tracking tasks and actions.
• MS Teams reactions and hand raises for participation and energy.