Raise the bar on meetings using my concept of 'Minimum Viable Meeting'

Deploying my concept of Minimum Viable Meeting has had a huge impact for one of my clients. Here's what it is and how it flicked the switch....

 

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times. Putting meeting best practice on posters in meeting rooms has virtually no impact in most organisations. Sharing lists of meeting technique is an obvious starting point but it doesn't work.

In previous posts, I've explained why. And the chances are, you've sat in a meeting and watched someone talked over someone, right next to a sign saying 'everyone's voice matters', so you don't need me to convince you!

So let's unpack something similar that DOES work. Though it feels like I'm really handing over the crown jewels here, I'll talk you though chunk of a project I did last year.

 

The classic meeting culture scenario 

My client was a large, well established tech company. Lots of knowledge workers, lots of meetings. My discovery work revealed that 4-step dance I see a lot:

• nice bright people who want to be inclusive - and invite a lot of people to a lot of meetings
• so many meetings, there's no time to properly think about any of them - in the diary they go and we'll figure it out when we get there
• an intuitive resistance to 'over-engineering' meetings - "it's just a meeting, ok?!"
• but .. everyone frustrated with the lack of preparation, circular discussions, rabbit holes and failure to turn discussion into meaningful action.

 

So far, so familiar. I see this All. The. Time.

It's no one's fault. It's just the natural consequence of the type of work we do and the way the culture of most organisations has evolved.

 

Enter: Minimum Viable Meeting

I've already explained that just sharing and encouraging good meeting practice isn't enough to break ot of the 4-step dance above. In part, that's because the effort/reward/consequence ratios are too low.

The effort is high (often these meeting practices need some thinking about e.g. "Make sure everyone has their say" <--- how do you do that? how do you know if you've done it?)

The reward is low (you might see limited change and you have to do it all again for the next meeting)

The consequence of not doing it is minimal (No agenda? No consequence; One person dominates the meeting? No consequence)

 

I used one of my concepts in this organisation called Minimum Viable Meeting (MVM).

In most orgs, the only requirement to have a meeting is the calendar entry. As long as it has a basic name, a time and some invitees, it's a meeting.

The bar is essentially on the floor.

Minimum Viable Meeting raises the bar off the floor to an acceptable level.

The level at which we feel it's a valuable enough use of however many people's undivided time and attention. The level at which the issue at hand can be dealt with at a sufficient level of sophistication.

It's the end of the sentence, "For a meeting to be a meeting in [company X], it MUST ...."

For clarity, by minimum viable meeting, I don't mean the smallest, shortest, leanest meeting you can get away with. I mean the minimum number of features needed to justify the time and effort of the people there. Without those features, it doesn't qualify as a meeting and it's not worth people's time. Make sense?

 

 

Under the bonnet one company's specific MVM...

For this tech company, we designed a Minimum Viable Meeting that captured what was particularly critical for them. In my discovery work, people told me they didn't know exactly what many of their meetings were for, why they were there and what they were expected to contribute. So we focused in on meeting that basic need for orientation, in each and every meeting.

Minimum Viable Meeting for them was:

1. A crystal clear, specific meeting purpose 

We made this easy to implement by giving people a suggested sentence to complete: "We want to walk out of this meeting with..."

It had to be provided before the meeting. If it didn't come in the initial invite, the invite should specify when it was arriving.

If you didn't get this meeting invite, the norm was to ask for it.

 

2. A contribution request list

For this company, this was really important as there were so many overlapping meetings, projects and discussion. In practice, this was a list of invitees and the contribution they were hoping each person would make, added to the agenda itself. Here's exactly how I do this in practice.

If you didn't get this in the meeting invite, again, the norm was to ask for it.

 

3. A set of meeting questions to answer

To frame the groups contribution, each meeting needed at least two questions to answer. I use 2+ questions as a way of forcing the host to break the purpose into at least two sequential steps which studies show helps people coalesce around a clearer objective for each phase of the session.

The norm was that these questions were quite conversational and description to better elicit interesting and useful answers.

So instead of:
"What's the progress update on Project X?"

They might use:
"What do you think we absolutely need to know about Project X this week?"

(by the way, the queen of meeting questions is Steph Vidal-Hall - and she has launched Question Club to support people will exactly this process)

 

More examples to draw from

I always keep MWM to three items (or maaaybe a couple more if they are very simple 10-second tasks). Any more and it's just not lean and achievable enough.

Here are some of the items I've used with other clients:

• Every meeting opens with a Round (or no one speaks twice til everyone has spoken once)
• Everyone contributes to the agenda beforehand
• The meeting is captured in realtime in a shared doc
• The action list emailed out same day
• Crucial material is always consumed before the meeting, not during (an advanced one!)
• Every meeting finishes with 1 minute of feedback on that session e.g. The Big Three 
• Every meeting leaves a 10-min bio break before the next one

Any sensible 'rule' can work - provided it directly solves the main meeting problems you have and is doable at scale, for everyone.

 

And oh my goodness, it worked

 

Going back to my tech company client, this was such a powerful shift for them. The MVM elements felt doable and obviously helpful. We tested and crafted them carefully for minimum friction in this particular company's mindset and workflow - and we made sure they could be reasonably applied to any type of meeting.

Compliance (horrible word but let's go with it) was high almost immediately. There was just no logical reason not to use MVV. And suddenly, people found their meetings were not just productive but fizzing with energy and momentum. Like so many things in life, when we know where we're headed and feel we are a crucial part of the journey, we beyond energised and resourceful.

Side benefit - people started finding meetings finished early (wait, what?!). When people didn't need to fumble for clarity IN the meeting itself, the sessions just didn't take as long! People contributed more concisely. Some people felt more valued and therefore more able to contribute candidly, also saving time going round the houses. Answers became obvious more quickly.

 

 

Back the truck up... but WHY does it work?

Minimum Viable Meeting is effective where sharing meeting best practice doesn't because:

- it feels well designed and 'fit for purpose'

- it feels lean and streamlined

- it's specific

- it's memorable

- it's achievable

- it's ticks the logical/reasonable/fair box

- and crucially, it's ACCOUNTABLE.

If you are invited to a meeting without one or more of the three elements, you are encouraged to ask for them! Being asked for the MVM elements creates a direct social expectation, driving up adherence. This is how we shift the norm.

You can apply this to teams equally effectively. Or you might develop your own MVM: "If I'm running a meeting, this is the absolute minimum I will do".

Let me know how you get on.