How Not to Design a Meeting: How Team Project Review Went Wrong and Demoralized a Team and How Not to Repeat the Mistake Yourself.

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How Not to Design a Meeting

I was talking with a colleague the other day who shared frustrations about a recent meeting. Well, to avoid burying the lede, this is about a meeting that never happened. So today I wrote this lessons learned post on how not to design a meeting.

Imagine a director from a large tech company comes to you as a team leader and says the following: “Our VP offered some slots to review our teams. I selected yours and one other. You get 45 minutes each. You will be the second team to present.”

A moment like that combines butterflies and pride, a bit of trepidation and a whole lot of “gee, what do I do next?”

The answer at a tech company is usually twofold: put together a contextual presentation and prepare a demo.

Suffice it to say that those two elements, the presentation and the demo, were in play. The director, the manager, and the entire team worked for over a week, including late into several evenings, to prepare the presentation.

The day of the session starts as expected, with the first team delivering their context presentation. The VP has some questions. Then, a few more. Finally, the demo starts. More questions.

At the end of 90 minutes, the second team was informed that there would be no time for their presentation. The team left frustrated and demoralized. Sure, they are promised a review at a later date, but that means redoing the prep work again, because in tech, nothing remains static. This presentation will be old news even a week in the future.

How Not to Design a Meeting: What the VP did wrong

After reading this, you will hopefully find it important to design meetings as work experiences rather than just letting them happen. Read below how not to design a meeting.

Respect the commitment. If the VP promised two 45-minute presentations in a 90-minute slot, then make sure both teams get to present. This is not about being rigorously tied to a clock but being empathetic to your team. A VP’s curiosity should not be sufficient permission to break a promise.

Recognizing the work. Both teams were prepared, and both teams, which had already earned the right to present, should have presented. Each team did a lot of work. For the second team, that work feels wasted. Worse, they felt disrespected. All of those hours for nothing. Not allowing the second team to present probably did more harm than whatever value the VP perceived they received from their questioning.

Perceived value does not cover the cost. The VP is likely to think to themselves at first that these were all valid questions and that they needed to ask for the good of the product and the company. And that isn’t necessarily wrong. What was wrong was asking them in the meeting. Both teams and the VP work in collaborative environments. Questions should be ongoing, not just in a meeting.

The power play. Because I’m a VP, I’m special. Time bows to me. BS. If that were true, the VP could have slowed time so both teams would have presented within the allotted time. Time bends to no one, so respect it.

Not setting expectations. If the VP knows they like to ask questions and often run long in review meetings, warn the team. Be self-aware and reflect that in your actions. Say something like: “I sometimes get into the weeds. Maybe a little too much. But that’s me. The first session may run long. I’ve already scheduled a backup meeting for tomorrow to let us wrap up anything we don’t get to in this meeting.”

Not being self-aware. The previous item suggests that the VP recognizes their management foibles. A bigger problem for the VP and the organization is an executive who isn’t self-aware. This kind of behavior can lead to dismissal for executives too often, too right to learn how to improve themselves.

Compounding the mistake by not owning it. The VP only stated that some future time would be made for the other team to present. The team deserved a better apology, perhaps some compensation for the slight. I’m not sure sending a disgruntled team out to a bar to grouse about bad behavior is the right remedy, but perhaps telling them to come in at noon the next day as compensation for the extra hours might go some way toward healing. Oh, and apologizing and committing not to let it happen again would also be good.

Of course, the antithesis of How Not to Design a Meeting is to design meetings. We have many resources on Serious Insights, some of which are linked at the bottom of this post.

How Not to Design a Meeting: Notes for designing a team review meeting

If you are ever the executive in this story, follow these bullets. Avoid mistakes while achieving reciprocal respect from your teams, demonstrating good financial accountability on behalf of the company, and improving capabilities across the organization by aligning what you say with what you do.

• Demonstrate empathy by holding to the schedule and recognizing the impact of the work put into the request you made. Keep an eye on the clock (or have a staffer do it for you). As the first half of the meeting approaches, ask how much more remains. Signal to team 2 that they may need to finish up tomorrow. Communicate in real time, as that is when the meeting takes place.
• Recognize that respect is mutual. If you want it, you need to give it.
• At a minimum, get the greet in. Meet all the team members. Do this before the first presentation, even if the other team is waiting in another room.
• Let the second team watch. Get them in the room so they can learn about the VP’s style, what the other team is up to, and what they get put through. Practice without the pain (at least team two’s pain).
• Set clear expectations for what is required. Teams often guess what the VP wants, leading to questions that could have been answered if the VP had provided them ahead of the meeting.
• Make meetings more about the people than the project status. A good project should not be a mystery. Getting to know people can be. Senior executives should use meeting time to get to know the people who work for them, rather than discussing details about dates and technical choices that can be answered asynchronously. A demo without the context set-up is a great way to see how people perform in front of others. Practice with an opportunity for feedback.
• If the executive truly wants the meeting to be a moment that requires no extra work, say that. Many individuals won’t listen, going on to perfect messages and create new, pretty slide presentations that will never be used again. I personally found the best way to find out about a project is to visit the project team where they live, often unannounced. Management by walking around remains a valid technique, even in the age of too many collaboration tools.

This may feel like a small thing. 45 minutes in a career. But a career is made of many small moments. Executives should know that. They may not control time, but they do shape perceptions of themselves and the businesses they work for. They need to keep that in mind and make the best choices they can to respect those who work for them. And when they fail, they need to acknowledge it, own it and do something about it.

Have you ever been in this situation? Caused it? How would you feel if it happened to you? Do you think the VP was right and behaved well? Would you have done the same if you were in their place as the VP? Have you? Do you still feel OK about it?

Share your thoughts on how not to design a meeting in the comments.

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