Three alternatives to a meeting, designed to save three hours a week

There's a whole load of stuff that just doesn't need to be done in meeting time.

 

Meetings exist within an ecosystem of other collaboration modalities.

Change meetings - and you almost certainly need to change something else in the mix.

If you want to REDUCE meetings, you definitely need to draw on other modalities.

And we really want this because Meetings are HIGH intensity.

7 people.

100% focused on one conversation.

No choice over how and when to consume and respond.

Must react 'correctly' in the moment.

 

It's no surprise that meetings have a high burn rate of both time and energy.

AND YET… they are typically the thing we spend most of our time in.

Lower intensity modalities offer choice about when to consume and respond and we are not required to publicly react ‘in the moment’ (which contributes to the intensity of meetings).

Here’s a typical collaboration mix of collaboration and you can see how meetings dominate the modalities.

 

 

We want to invert this pyramid so that we use meetings for the most precious and crucial group work. And then divert everything else to lower intensity modalities.

So more like this:

 

 

Your collaboration mix may look different, but I’ll bet you can gain back time and energy by flipping some meeting time to smart async.

And there is no set destination to reach and no set pace to make changes - so here are my three go-to async alternatives to a meeting.

 

Three ways to switch high intensity meeting time for lower intensity async time

Firstly, I need to say this.

Get your shared stuff into shared docs. MS Teams, Google Docs - whatever.

Put information where people can find and update it easily.

Stop using precious meeting time telling each other things that are already easily accessible.

Now I’ve got that off my chest, let’s look at three credible alternatives to all or part of a meeting.

 

1. Async chat meetings

Can you shift some meetings (or parts of meetings) to group chat? You don’t have to do this at exactly the same time as each other but you might have a window of time when questions are open and then the ‘meeting’ is closed.

For example a Monday morning check in:

 

 

You don’t have to replace this meeting every week - but you could intersperse async and meeting versions of this check in.

Another scenario: you could consult a range of people on a decision you’d like to make without getting them all in the same room.

 

 

 

 

2. The scannable email

I hardly dare even mention using email. But bear with me as this is not the normal kind of email.

Meetings are not a good place to ‘broadcast to all’. But emails are. Consider creating a regular email newsletter which is focused on:

- What people need to know

- What might help them do something

- How you can help them

- How they can help you

 

The key here is to package it up so it’s scannable (you can get the gist and find everything by reading the headlines/subtitles) and low on text. You are signposting and highlighting, not giving full details.

 

 

 

3. And one to work up to: the 5in5 video

That meeting where someone talks through a powerpoint deck in too much detail for 45 minutes (oh the agony) and just as the important discussion gets going… time’s up.

The alternative to this is to record a short video for people to watch and review.

I call it 5in5 because a good rule of thumb is 5 slides in 5 minutes. I use Loom.com to record myself presenting slides and the free version allows you to make unlimited videos under 5 minutes - a natural creative constraint!

This might be instead of a meeting:

“Watch this and jot down answer to this question”

Or it could be that people watch it before the meeting which is then shorter and focused ONLY on the discussion points.

This technique forces concision - but it does take practice! It will always suit some personalities and styles more than others.

The other benefit is that video can be shared more widely than just the would-be meeting attendees. Over time, I can imagine an org building a library of these and people getting very used to creating them - but also watching and commenting on them as part of their role.

 

 

And of course don’t forget the Trying New Things In Meetings journey.

 

 

It always feels weird until it’s normal. So just try it and figure out what’s going to save you time and focus precious meeting time on the highest quality conversations.