Yesterday I had to go to a pre construction meeting for a job we are about to do. I have been to several of these kinds of meetings in the past and they are always a crap shoot as to if it will be a good meeting, or a meeting you want to kill yourself just to get out of it.
Yesterdays meeting was the later. We had around 15 people packed into a room that would hold 10 comfortably. The Project Manager handed out a meeting and project scope agenda, and proceeded to READ EVERY LINE OF THE 15 PAGE AGENDA!?!?!?!!?
Now this may come as a surprise to some people but I CAN READ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As I have stated before I really hate having my time wasted. To quote the show Firefly "I can not abide wasteful people" Why was this agenda not sent out BEFORE the meeting, and at the meeting we go over any issues or concerns we might have? Why did we need to sit through almost an hour of this guy doing nothing but reading? Yes it took him almost an hour to read 15 pages, mostly because he kept going off on tangents. After he finished we had another hour of discussion.
I don't understand why people continue to run poor meetings. Do they enjoy boring the hell out of the world? Do they not realize they are wasting our time? Is that how they were trained to do it, and if so WHY?
Thoughts on this anyone?
On a better note only 15 days till DragonCon!
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Two Points:
ReplyDeleteFirst, your widget says 16 days until DragonCon...maybe it's 15 days until you leave for DragonCon?
Secondly, no. Most of America has never been trained on how to run an effective, or even timely, meeting. And as we always say, you can't expect them to know if we haven't taught them.
Can you tell I'm in a smarta$$ mood? ;)
I suspect the PM was previously in a more technical position in which attention to detail was a value add. Often people get promoted into PM roles without much formal training. If he was formally trained, he apparently failed to internalize the section on appropriate communication plans.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I LOVE (emphasis on sarcasm... that can't be heard) when as an EDUCATOR we are given print outs of power points, then read the power points word for word... as they put them up, with a hand out. Yeah, that's always a good way to make an educated adult feel like we're being patronized.
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