Naomi Chavez, an internal consultant for Cisco Systems, one of Silicon Valley'southward leading network-equipment manufacturers, is frustrated: "We have the most ineffective meetings of any visitor I've always seen."

Kevin Eassa, vice president of operations for the disk division of Conner Peripherals, another Silicon Valley giant, is realistically resigned: "We realize our meetings are unproductive. A consulting house is trying to assistance us, and we think they've hit the mark. Only we've got a long way to become."

Richard Collard, senior manager of network operations at Federal Limited, is just exasperated: "Nosotros just seem to encounter and meet and meet and we never seem to practice anything."

Meetings are the about universal — and universally despised — part of business organization life. Merely bad meetings do more than than ruin an otherwise pleasant twenty-four hours. William R. Daniels, senior consultant at American Consulting & Preparation of Mill Valley, California, has introduced meeting-improvement techniques to companies including Applied Materials and Motorola. He is adamant nigh the real stakes: bad meetings make bad companies.

"Meetings matter because that's where an organization's civilization perpetuates itself," he says. "Meetings are how an organization says, 'You are a fellow member.' So if every day we get to deadening meetings full of deadening people, then we tin't assistance but think that this is a dull company. Bad meetings are a source of negative messages nearly our company and ourselves."

Information technology'due south not supposed to be this way. In a business earth that is faster, tougher, bacteria, and more than downsized than ever, you might expect the sheer demands of competition (not to mention the touch on of e-mail and groupware) to curb our ambition for meetings. In reality, the opposite may exist true. Equally more work becomes teamwork, and fewer people remain to do the piece of work that exists, the number of meetings is likely to increase rather than decrease. Jon Ryburg, president of the Facility Operation Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is an organizational psychologist who advises companies on role blueprint and "coming together ergonomics." He tells his clients that they need twice as much meeting space every bit they did 20 years agone. The reason? "More and more companies are team-based companies, and in team-based companies most work gets done in meetings."

A variety of tools and techniques (plus a healthy dose of mutual sense) tin can brand meetings less painful, more productive, perchance even fun. In that location's also an important office for technology, although the undeniable power of estimator-enabled meeting systems normally comes with astronomical price tags. Notwithstanding, there's lots to learn from electronic "meetingware" fifty-fifty if you never purchase information technology. What follows is Fast Company'southward guide to the seven sins of deadly meetings and, more than important, seven steps to conservancy.

Sin #1: People don't take meetings seriously. They make it tardily, exit early on, and spend most of their time doodling.

Salvation: Adopt Intel's heed-set that meetings are real work.

In that location are as many techniques to meliorate the "crispness" of meetings as at that place are items on the typical coming together agenda. Some companies punish latecomers with a penalty fee or reprimand them in the minutes of the meeting. But these techniques accost symptoms, not the illness. Disciplined meetings are most mind-set — a shared conviction among all the participants that meetings are existent work. That all-too-frequent expression of relief — "Meeting'south over, let's get back to work" — is the mortal enemy of adept meetings.

"Most people simply don't view going to meetings as doing piece of work," says William Daniels. "Y'all accept to brand your meetings uptime rather than downtime."

Is at that place a company with the right mind-set? Daniels nominates Intel, the semiconductor manufacturer famous for its managerial toughness and crisp execution. Walk into whatsoever conference room at whatever Intel factory or role anywhere in the world and yous will see on the wall a poster with a serial of simple questions virtually the meetings that take place there. Do yous know the purpose of this meeting? Practice you have an calendar? Do y'all know your role? Exercise you follow the rules for expert minutes?

These posters are a visual reminder of but how serious Intel is near productive meetings. Indeed, every new employee, from the most junior production worker to the highest ranking executive, is required to have the company'due south home-grown grade on effective meetings. For years the course was taught by CEO Andy Grove himself, who believed that skilful meetings were such an important part of Intel's culture that information technology was worth his time to train the troops. "We talk a lot about meeting discipline," says Michael Fors, corporate training managing director at Intel University. "It isn't complicated. It's doing the basics well: structured agendas, clear goals, paths that you're going to follow. These things make a huge deviation."

Sin #ii: Meetings are besides long. They should accomplish twice as much in one-half the fourth dimension.

Salvation: Time is money. Runway the toll of your meetings and use computer- enabled simultaneity to brand them more productive.

Almost every guru invokes the same rule: meetings should last no longer than 90 minutes. When's the last fourth dimension your company held to that rule?

1 reason meetings drag on is that people don't capeesh how expensive they are. James B. Rieley, director of the Center for Continuous Quality Comeback at the Milwaukee Area Technical Higher, recently decided to change all that. He did a survey of the college's 130-person management council to find out how much time its members spent in meetings. When he multiplied their time past their salaries, he determined that the college was spending $iii million per twelvemonth on management-council meetings lone. Money talks: after Rieley'south study came out, the college trained xl people equally facilitators to go along meetings on rails. Bernard DeKoven, founder of the Institute for Better Meetings in Palo Alto, California, has gone Rieley one step better. He's developed software called the Coming together Meter that allows any team or section to calculate, on a running basis, how much their meetings price. After someone inputs the names and salaries of coming together participants, the program starts ticking. Think of it as a national debt clock for meetings.

DeKoven emphasizes that he created the Coming together Meter every bit a conversation piece rather than as a serious management tool. It's a visible fashion to put meeting productivity on the calendar. "When I employ the meter, I don't just talk nigh the cost of meetings," he says, "I talk near the cost of bad meetings. Because bad meetings lead to even more meetings, and over time the costs get awe-inspiring."

Engineering science can exercise more than only proceed meetings shorter. It can besides increase productivity — that is, help generate more ideas and decisions per minute. 1 of the master benefits of meetingware is that information technology allows participants to violate the first dominion of good behavior in most other circumstances: wait your plow to speak. With Ventana's GroupSystems V, the nigh powerful meeting software bachelor today, participants enter their comments and ideas into workstations. The workstations organize the comments and project them onto a monitor for the whole group to see. Virtually everyone who has studied or participated in figurer-enabled meetings agrees that this chapters for simultaneity produces dramatic gains in the number of ideas and the speed with which they are generated.

Geoff Bywater, senior vice president of marketing and promotion for FoxMusic, recently organized a strategic retreat for the 170 top executives of 20th Century Fob Filmed Amusement. He used a computer system supplied by CoVision, a San Francisco consulting house that specializes in technology-enabled meetings. Apple PowerBooks outfitted with customized software allowed participants to answer to questions, propose ideas, and vote on options — all at the same time.

"We had 170 of the brightest people in the visitor in one room," Bywater reports. "The claiming was, how much data and how many ideas could we become out of them? Fifty-fifty if we had divided into 15 breakout groups, we'd still take only 15 people speaking at the same time. People were amazed. If we asked a question and each person typed in 2 ideas, that's nearly 350 ideas in 5 minutes! That was the biggest impact of the technology – the number of ideas generated in such a curt fourth dimension."

Be warned, though: electronic meetings tin can be more productive than traditional meetings, but they're not e'er shorter. "The good news virtually computer-supported meetings is that the discussions tend non to exist repetitive or redundant," says Michael Schrage, a consultant on collaborative technologies and the author of No More Teams!, an influential guide to group piece of work and meetings. "The bad news is that the meetings can become longer. The computer-supported environment encourages people to discuss things a little more thoroughly than they might otherwise."

Sin #3: People wander off the topic. Participants spend more time digressing than discussing.

Salvation: Become serious nigh agendas and shop distractions in a "parking lot." It's the starting signal for all advice on productive meetings: stick to the agenda. But it's hard to stick to an agenda that doesn't be, and most meetings in nigh companies are decidedly agenda-complimentary. "In the existent world," says Schrage, "agendas are about as rare as the white rhino. If they do exist, they're virtually as useful. Who hasn't been in meetings where someone tries to prove that the calendar isn't appropriate?"

Agendas are worth taking seriously. Intel is fanatical about them; information technology has developed an agenda "template" that everyone in the company uses. Much of the template is unsurprising. An Intel calendar (circulated several days before a meeting to let participants react to and modify it) lists the meeting'due south key topics, who will atomic number 82 which parts of the give-and-take, how long each segment will take, what the expected outcomes are, and so on.

Intel agendas likewise specify the meeting's controlling mode. The company distinguishes among four approaches to decisions: authoritative (the leader has total responsibility); consultative (the leader makes a decision after weighing grouping input); voting; and consensus. Beingness articulate and up-front near determination styles, Intel believes, sets the right expectations and helps focus the conversation.

"Going into the meeting, people know how they're giving input and how that input will get rolled up into a decision," says Intel'due south Michael Fors. "If you don't have structured agendas, and people aren't sure of the conclusion path, they'll bring upward side bug that are related but not directly relevant to solving the problem."

Of course, even the best-crafted agendas can't guard confronting digressions, distractions, and the other foibles of human interaction. The challenge is to proceed meetings focused without stifling creativity or insulting participants who stray. At Ameritech, the regional telephone company based in Chicago, meeting leaders use a "parking lot" to maintain that focus.

"When comments come up that aren't related to the issue at hand, we record them on a flip nautical chart labeled the parking lot," says Kimberly Thomas, director of communications for pocket-size business organization services. But the parking lot isn't a black pigsty. "We always track the issue and the person responsible for information technology," she adds. "We use this technique throughout the company."

Sin #4: Nothing happens in one case the meeting ends. People don't convert decisions into action.

Salvation: Convert from "meeting" to "doing" and focus on mutual documents.

The problem isn't that people are lazy or irresponsible. Information technology's that people get out meetings with unlike views of what happened and what's supposed to happen side by side. Coming together experts are unanimous on this point: fifty-fifty with the ubiquitous tools of organization and sharing ideas — whiteboards, flip charts, Postal service-information technology notes — the capacity for misunderstanding is unlimited. Which is some other reason companies turn to computer engineering science.

The best way to avert that misunderstanding is to convert from "meeting" to "doing" — where the "doing" focuses on the creation of shared documents that lead to action. The fact is, at most powerful role for technology is also the simplest: recording comments, outlining ideas, generating written proposals, projecting them for the entire group to see, printing them then people leave with real-time minutes. Forget groupware; just get yourself a skilful outlining program and oversized monitor.

"You lot're non merely having a coming together, you're creating a certificate," says Michael Schrage. " I tin can't emphasize enough the importance of that stardom. It is the cardinal deviation between ordinary meetings and computer-augmented collaborations. Comments, questions, criticisms, insights should enhance the quality of the document. That should be the grouping's mission."

In other words, the medium is the meeting. That's why Bernard DeKovan prefers computers to flip charts and whiteboards. "Flip charts create behaviors conditioned by the medium," he says. "People commencement competing for room on the flip chart, the facilitator has to scratch thing out, and pretty soon you can't read what'south on it. With a estimator, you lot never run out of room for ideas, you can edit indefinitely, yous can generate hard copies for everyone at a moment'due south notice. It's a much richer medium."

Sin #five: People don't tell the truth. In that location's plenty of chat, but not much candor.

Salvation: Embrace anonymity.

Nosotros all know information technology's true: Likewise often, people in meetings merely don't speak their minds. Sometimes the problem is a leader who doesn't solicit participation. Sometimes a dominant personality intimidates the rest of the group. But nearly of the time the problem is a simple lack of trust. People don't feel secure plenty to say what they actually think.

The most powerful techniques to promote candor rely on technology, and most of these computer-based tools focus on anonymity — enabling people to express opinions and evaluate alternatives without having to divulge their identities. It'south a sobering commentary on free spoken language in business — "Say what y'all recall, and nosotros'll disguise your names to protect the innocent" — just it does seem to work.

Jay Nunamaker, CEO of Ventana Corporation, based in Tucson, Arizona, and a professor at the University of Arizona'southward Karl Eller Graduate Schoolhouse of Management, is a leading expert on electronic meetings. He says Ventana added anonymity to its software to meet the needs of the U.S. military. "Admirals tin really dampen interaction at a meeting," he notes. "But we didn't realize the impact it would have in corporate settings. Fifty-fifty with people who work together all the fourth dimension, anonymity changes the social protocols. People say things differently." CoVision, the business firm that facilitated the 20th Century Fox meeting, provides a organization that allows for anonymous voting and anonymous grouping conversations. Meeting participants enter comments onto laptops, and the comments are projected onto a screen without attribution. CoVision president Lenny Lind says the system is specially powerful in meetings of high-ranking executives.

"People in the upper reaches of management pay and then much deference to the leader, and take so much to lose, that conversations quickly become measured and political," he argues. "People merely won't bare their souls. Anonymity changes that."

But there are problems with anonymity. Some people like getting credit for their ideas, and anonymity can leave them feeling shortchanged. There are as well opportunities for manipulation. Carol Anne Ogdin of Deep Woods Technology, a teamwork consultant and coming together facilitator based in Santa Clara, California, calls anonymity a "modest idea that'southward been blown out of proportion." In particular, she worries almost gamesmanship – for example, people who build an bearding groundswell of support for their own contributions.

Sin #6: Meetings are always missing of import information, so they postpone disquisitional decisions.

Salvation: Go data, not just piece of furniture, into meeting rooms.

Most meeting rooms go far harder to have good meetings. They're sterile and uninviting — and oft in the middle of nowhere. Why? To aid people "concentrate" past removing them from the frenzy of function life. Merely this isolation leaves meeting rooms out of the information flow. Oftentimes, the downside of isolation outweighs the benefits of focus.

Computer-services giant EDS has built a prepare of loftier-tech facilities that leave meetings participants awash in data. These much-heralded Capture Labs, electronic meeting rooms used by the company and its clients, may offer a glimpse of the meeting room of the time to come.

The Capture Lab "is a self-independent information network," says Michael Bauer, a principal with EDS'southward management consulting subsidiary. "We tin bring in information from the Net or from EDS'south internal Web. We can get information on stock prices, even about the weather if we're worried nigh aircraft or travel. It's brought into the room, displayed on a screen, and talked nigh."

It's non necessary to get that far. Jon Ryburg, the meeting ergonomist, offers a few means to increase the "information caliber" in meeting spaces. For one affair, allow enough space in your meeting rooms for teams to store materials. Projection teams generate lots more minutes and memos. Meetings build models, make full upward flip charts, create artifacts of all sorts – "data" that's vital to future meetings. "People are constantly hauling materials to and from meeting rooms," Ryburg says. "It'due south much easier to just store things for later on meetings."

William Miller, director of research and business development for Steelcase, the function-furniture manufacturer based in Thou Rapids, Michigan, emphasizes that mobility is almost more than convenience. The radical redesign of work, he argues, requires a radical redesign of meeting space.

"Knowledge workers spend eighty% of their time at the office away from their desks," Miller says. "Where are they? Working on projects. The way to support that work is to build projection clusters and co-locate desks around them. You lot can post information and never accept it downward. We call information technology 'information persistence.' And we don't talk virtually meetings. We talk about 'interactions.' It'southward function of the new science of effective work."

Sin #7: Meetings never get better. People brand the aforementioned mistakes.

Salvation: Practice makes perfect. Monitor what works and what doesn't and hold people accountable.

Meetings are like any other part of concern life: yous get improve simply if yous commit to it — and aim high. Charles Schwab & Co., the fiscal-services company based in San Francisco, has made that commitment. In most every coming together at Schwab, someone serves as an "observer" and creates what the visitor calls a Plus/Delta list. The list records what went right and what went wrong, and gets included in the minutes. Over time, both for specific meeting groups and for the company as a whole, these lists create an calendar for modify.

How much can meetings amend? The terminal discussion goes to Bernard DeKoven: "People don't accept practiced meetings because they don't know what good meetings are like. Good meetings aren't just nigh work. They're about fun — keeping people charged up. It's more than collaboration, it's 'coliberation' — people freeing each other upward to recall more creatively."

"Take I Died and Gone to Meeting Sky?"

"How to Set for Your Next Coming together"