The Two-Page Memo
A two-page memo, read in silence at the top of the meeting, ended a standing 60-minute strategy review. The team got the hour back. The decisions got sharper.
Angle
Meetings
9 posts
The Meeting Nobody Owns
Weekly cross-functional sync. Eight attendees. No agenda. No notes. It had been on the calendar for two years and nobody could name who had created it.
The Tuesday Standup
Twelve people, fifteen minutes, every Tuesday for three years. The meeting outlived the project it was built for by twenty-eight months.
Why I Cancelled the Offsite
Three days, a venue in the Berkshires, an agenda with seventeen sessions. Nine days before it was scheduled, I cancelled it. The team thanked me twice.
The 1:1 I Stopped Doing
Weekly thirty-minute slots with seven directs for two years. The first month I deleted them, nobody noticed. The second month, the team got faster.
The forecast number nobody would bet on
Eleven people, ninety minutes, three slides. The number on the last slide is the one everyone believes, and the one nobody would stake their own money on.
Your one-on-one is a status meeting in disguise
Thirty minutes a week for eighteen months, opening with the Q3 rollout. The manager had built a standing meeting that wasn't management.
Eight engineers, fifteen minutes, zero re-plans
A standup that never changes anyone's plan has stopped coordinating and started reporting to the manager. Kill the format; ask one question instead.
Sixty people, forty-five minutes, zero questions
They sat through forty-five minutes of updates they could have read in a doc. Nobody asked a question. The CEO called that clarity. It was resignation.