TimeBridge

The Results Are In!

It has been about a month and a half since we first happily stuck our necks out to announce the end of the 60-minute meeting standard, and to propose 45-minutes as the new more efficient default meeting length. To commemorate we thought this was a perfect time to let you know what has happened since May 12, 2010….

Well, we have been amazed by the response. Not only have you written hundreds of positive comments to us and offered your own meeting efficiency rules for the community to consider, you’ve also actually changed your habits and embraced the movement. In fact, in March and April 2010, 52% of meetings scheduled and completed through TimeBridge were scheduled for 60 minutes and only 5% were for 45 minutes. At the end of May 2010 only 29% of meetings were scheduled for 60 minutes and 30% for 45 minutes. What this means is that in just a few weeks the percent of 45-minute meetings has grown by 6X! Wow indeed.

If you like pictures, take a gander.

You deserve a pat on the back for getting the 45-Minute Meeting Movement rolling. Hopefully the meeting hours already saved will afford you a bit more time at the beach or barbecue this summer.  Thanks for making the most of your meeting time.

Shoot to Meet Your Goals

Not sure what you were doing on Saturday at 11:30 PT, but many of us were watching the much-anticipated US vs. England match (which ended 1-1). The global excitement for the 2010 FIFA World Cup is infectious and consuming.  That’s pretty cool.

One of the ironic things about soccer  (and very frustrating to Americans who are used to high-scoring games), is that soccer matches often produce little or no final score results. A 0-0 game can still end when the 90 minutes allotted to each match runs out. Players wrestle non-stop for an hour and a half for one goal, if that. For the uninitiated if a 90-minute game is split into 45-minute halves, you might say it’s a pretty healthy time-frame to make a goal, right?

When we created the 45-Minute Meeting, we were motivated by the desire to bring productivity and efficiency back to meetings. For those who have been following this movement, by introducing this methodology of allotting a shorter time and a hard-stop to our meetings, we are challenging you, the participants, to check off items, manage projects, assign actions, finalize release dates, firm up time-lines, and meet your goals – within 45 minutes or less. Essentially, we are asking you (and ourselves since we practice this method), to get a tremendous amount done in a very short amount of time.

To ensure your next meeting is a high scoring success we encourage you to set significant goals for each meeting and tie-up loose ends by its conclusion. Make goals aggressive but reasonable and achievable – focus on items that can come full circle in 45 minutes. Give it a try. Without short-changing the massive and very successful effort of the World Cup US soccer team this weekend, wouldn’t it be great to, instead of just one, achieve all your goals in 45 minutes?

Recipe To Get Rid Of Interruptions – So You Can Work At Work

I recently watched a video featuring Jason Fried, the co-founder of 37 Signals, titled “Why You Can’t Work At Work.” It reminded me of another article by Paul Graham that I read last year titled “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule.”

Both of these commentaries champion managers removing interruptions to help the makers (e.g. analysts, developers, designers, etc.) work smarter and more focused, ultimately leading to more empowered and happier employees. This embodies the spirit of the 45-Minute Meeting Movement we are leading at TimeBridge.

Here are a few ideas to consider:

Schedule strategically. Propose multiple time slots when you can get your meeting participants at their best. Typically, that will not be at 9 am on Monday morning or immediately after lunch. Jason points out that going to work is equivalent to going to sleep. It takes time to ease into your day and hit your stride, similar to how it takes time to fall asleep, and then to achieve R.E.M.

Schedule on the hour to allow for breaks. The 45-minute meeting inherently allows for a 15 minute break before your next meeting, for travel, transition, bio, and email. Consider this – some of your employees may be introverted, which means they may need a little break alone to recharge. Whatever the case may be, we could all use a break after devoting our intense focus for 45 minutes straight.

Designate meeting-safe time blocks. Can your company designate two or three 4-hour blocks of time when it is appropriate to meet during of the week, and stick to it? According to Graham, “A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in.” By designating “meeting zones,” employees will have an adequate amount of time to prepare, interruptions will be minimized, and your meetings will ultimately be more productive. Employees will also expect to meet, and are able to plan the rest of their week accordingly.

Hold office hours. Expose your availability and let your colleagues get on your calendar when they need to, to troubleshoot difficult problems or run through a proposal. Even hold virtual office hours, where you welcome interruptions, over chat or some collaboration tool like Google Wave. Need proof…Google does it. Keep to the scheduled time and encourage people to schedule in 15 and 45 minute chunks. Simple ideas and pitches can be conveyed in 15 minutes, while a structured brainstorming session can easily take place in 45 minutes.

Let us know how you combat interruptions and establish a positive meeting culture — the enemy of productivity! Leave us a comment below or Tweet at us and use the #45minmtg tag.

We have winners…and great meeting tips!

Well we finally had the chance to collectively review and select the best meeting tips for running an optimal 45 minute meeting.  We had fun reading  all of the great ideas, so thanks to all for participating.

Here’s a sampling of the great recommendations we received from the community:

• Stand up for meetings. No one suggested wearing sensible shoes but we assume that would follow.
• Set an agenda before the meeting with time allocation. And stick to it!  One commenter suggested that you frame the decision that needs to be made for each agenda item.  We really like this idea though may extend it since not every agenda item may require a decision.  It could be a status update or a brainstorm but we really like the focus on outcomes.  In that vein, another wrote:
  “Every meeting idea must have a accountability factor: who will take responsibility , decide a deadline for the result, what is needed to accomplish this task, when will first update be given. All this is documented in the meeting notes.”
• Give people roles in the meeting. Someone might be the time keeper or note taker.  Or maybe someone is “the hammer”?
• Here are a couple that stood out for their vividness:
  “Get a heavy stone and hand the stone to anyone who speaks (speech will be very short)”
  “I read a great tip from @Caterina: everyone starts the meeting by drinking 16 oz of water; meeting ends when someone has to pee.”

Recognizing the concrete, as well as some winning tongue-in-cheek recommendations, we selected 10 winners from the nearly 50 that we received.  Each will receive a free copy of Mike Song’s book, The Hamster Revolution for Meetings.

And the winners are:
David J. Lanners
Nancy A. Shenker
Aaron Coates
Kenny Zail
Shahid
Chris Bennett
Clive Jones
Sheila Karr
@bookchiq
Judith Katz

Congratulations all!  You’ll be hearing from us, but if not, you can email me stormer [at] timebridge.com.

Why 45?

Isn’t zero the right number?
As we looked at the responses to our announcement last week,  one theme that emerged was “why 45 minutes?”   How about 22 or 15 or, as @berkun, quipped on Twitter, “at this rate, someone will be advocating 30 second meetings.”  We understand there is strong emotion around meetings— specifically that people feel that they are a waste of time, so why not get as close to zero as possible.  That’s better, right?

As this idea took shape here at TimeBridge, we, of course, bandied about and experimented with different meeting lengths to rally around.  Someone (actually @andrewdwelch) brought to our attention the 22 minute meeting idea presented by Nicole Steinbok.  Her presentation at Ignite is a must see.   And our friend Mike Song, in his book,  “The Hampster Revolution for Meetings”, recommends scheduling 20 or 50 minute meetings.  That’s really closer to what our thinking is.  If it normally would be an hour meeting make it 45.  If it would normally be a 30 minute meeting, make it 20 (or, heck, 22) minutes.   But our data showed that over half of our meetings were 60 minutes long.  So we thought anything shorter than 30 minutes would end up being impractical as a single number.  And we wanted a single number.  One number to rule them all!

Seeking simplicity
We wanted to break through the clutter and felt that by settling on a single, common sense solution we had the best chance of starting good conversation and causing meetings to change for real. The concept of the 4-hour work week is compelling (if initially outrageous) in part because it is simple and concrete.  (But wouldn’t the zero hour work week be better?).

Breaking old habits
The real benefit of starting this movement is not literally to make all meetings  45 minutes for the sake of it.  It’s to cause meeting organizers to stop and think.  Stop…and…think.

So there you have a few of our thoughts.  It’s important to know that we are not dogmatic about the number, but we are hellbent on the movement of helping meeting  organizers run better meetings.  And to that end we’ll continue to tout the virtues of the 45 Minute Meeting.  Viva la 45!