Canberra, the meeting capital of the nation

Luckily commercial radio hasn’t been infected by the meeting disease quite like this. Having said that, Austereo stations reportedly have a meeting overload. I’m told that insiders used to believe that Adelaide’s SAFM actually stood for “Sh– Another F—–g Meeting”

Much has been studied and written about these sort of things. Find the best of it, read it, apply it.

Here’s just one tiny little suggestion, wherever you can apply it: go for mornings instead of afternoons.

(And the private sector has just as many problems, from what I’ve seen so far, so I wouldn’t go too fast on the stereotypes… at any rate the relevant useful things can apply here or there, so if you find them by all means try them out).

I don’t completely agree with that first post by enrique (reward systems can be tricky, works in some ways backfires in others), but it’s all up very interesting. Some goal setting and a degree of independence to the various players, many contexts that works very well and people can take on some good energy in that sort of thing.

And to think some people claim computer games are pointless…

One thing a meeting needs is a good leader. Tough gig, some empathy there (and maybe a little help, they might appreciate it now and then?)… but yes, leadership is one factor.

Having sat on both sides of the fence in both the private and public sector there seems to be two very different reasons for frequent meetings.
The issue in the Public Service is that there seems to be a requirement to have stakeholder engagement for most of the programs or projects that are run. The way to limit these is to agree how much is really required with senior management.

tobefair said :

a lot of time was spent ‘reporting’ on productivity and predicting as such.

Definitely agree with this comment about the private sector. It bordered on the ridiculous in some cases for me, getting up at 3am to conference in for global productivity discussions.

One thing I’ve instigated in my teams is the 20 minute meeting, short, sharp and focussed. To reduce meeting overload with our fellow APS colleagues at other agencies, we limit our meetings to 30 mins and we set agendas with points for agreement.

Plus 1 to saying NO!

I agree that it’s often worth saying no, but it can be pretty career limiting. I do generally insist on an agenda wherever possible.

I don’t have much APS experience, but the private sector isn’t immune. Although the issue at my previous company (a large international) was that a lot of time was spent ‘reporting’ on productivity and predicting as such. I often felt like including a column for ‘time spent writing these reports’ which would have been significant. But, much of it is playing the game.

As one who has never been in the public service, I find this thread fascinating.
I read somewhere that in Russia people pretend to work and the state pretends to pay them.
It appears to be no different in the Australian public service judging by these anecdotes.

Grail said :

A very powerful tool in controlling the domination of your work time by meetings is the word “no.”

You can simply choose to not attend those meetings which do not have an agenda, or do not relate to the work you’re doing or likely to be doing. Sometimes you do need to be harsh: “No, I’m not coming: there’s no agenda and you have previously been a very bad meeting chair and your meetings end up becoming water cooler sessions that last an hour rather than the 30 minutes scheduled.”

I remember one reaction I had when I withdrew from a particularly tedious regular meeting that was just a belly button analysis-fest. Holy hell, did it cause fall out, not least because you are telling them that their meeting is irrelevant. Still, made my point and moved on.

Meetings can be good, as long as you don’t come out with more work and everyone else acts as if the were never there.

Sebastian Fernandez said :

rosscoact said :

oh yeah, back in the day when I was in the PS, meetings ruled my life. Now (almost) the only time I have meetings is when I meet with public servants

Are you serious ? If this is true, it’s exactly what I’m going on about !!

Back to back days were the worst and rarely an agenda or agreed outcomes.

These days we use virtual meeting and collaboration spaces along with client portals on a daily basis and I’m amazed that the government doesn’t do the same.

rosscoact said :

oh yeah, back in the day when I was in the PS, meetings ruled my life. Now (almost) the only time I have meetings is when I meet with public servants

Are you serious ? If this is true, it’s exactly what I’m going on about !!

milkman said :

I remember working for a large IT service provider and on troubled projects we’d have daily progress meetings, sometimes twice daily. I would lose 1-2 hours every day to these meetings, and yet they achieved nothing.

I’m also a firm believer in using the word ‘no’.

And yes, we all agree that saying NO would work, but it’s not always practical. Those above us seem to believe that meetings are so amazingly important.

I remember working for a large IT service provider and on troubled projects we’d have daily progress meetings, sometimes twice daily. I would lose 1-2 hours every day to these meetings, and yet they achieved nothing.

I’m also a firm believer in using the word ‘no’.