Booking better meetings

Experiment #50 ● 16th March, 2021 ● by Joshua Nussbaum

Meetings are often a huge time suck.

Here are some idea to make them better:

Make sure the person booking is aware of the total cost of the meeting. ie 4 people for 1 hour, costs 4 hours.
Instead of asking for the title of the meeting, ask for the agenda. The title can be generated from the agenda.
Before the meeting, email the agenda to guests and ask for them to submit their thoughts on each point. Share those points with others before the meeting.
When choosing a time, remind the user that anything over 30 minutes is a bad idea.
When choosing a length beyond 30 minutes, ask the user to shorten the time, maybe link to a guide?
Designate a “notetaker” who will be responsible for taking notes. After the meeting the notetaker gets an pinged with an email asking them to fill out the notes. Those notes are recorded and emailed to all attendees and stakeholders

Some more things outside booking:

Keep track of votes. If there is anything to vote on, make sure it is attached to the meeting and after meeting, it can be sent to all guests and stakeholders.
Assign tasks. Sometimes it makes sense to have attendees prepare something for the meeting.
Tracking how much each person books. ie if someone books too many meetings, maybe they need better direction.
Tracking which people are in the same meetings. maybe they can work together before involving more people.
Recording. Optionally, if the meeting could be recorded and attached.

Code