23 April 2007
Personally I find Dilbert pretty hit and miss, but I have been in meetings that ended a lot like this.Top 5 signs that a meeting is in trouble:
1) No agenda
2) No stated time limit
3) No one responsible for keeping on track
4) No one taking notes
5) No agreement on what happens once the meeting breaks
I wanted to right something funny for number 5 but the truth is that I've spent too much of my 37 years in useless, boring and repetitive meetings to find them funny.
On the flip side good meetings can be excellent. In 1990 I met the Minister for Information in the Seychelles. We were trying to shoot a TV ad on the tarmac at the airport, something which was severely frowned upon (by grumpy men with automatic weapons).
I was summoned to the Minister's office to account for our request. I said something along the lines of "We would like to shoot some video of your airplane for a television advert... it will take about 2 hours and we can do it whenever is convenient for the airline... maam."
She said, "Sure."
This brings me to number 6 on the list... a meeting is in trouble when the people who are actually able to take decisions aren't in the meeting. (This is actually one of the key reasons I prefer small businesses, the ratio of decision makers to non-decision makers is much preferable).
Posted by Nick Warren at 1:18 PM
