Thread by @mykola

Just posted a message to my work's #culture channel about rethinking the way we run ad hoc meetings to make them more generally accessible.

Most meetings are great - but tech idea discussions can turn into chaotic idea sharing that not everyone feels comfortable with.

So I shared a solution I've been working on on my team to help our communication while simultaneously creating written artifacts of our decisions:

Meeting templates. Everyone on the call mobs on a shared document fleshing out details there, not in conversation.

It is accommodation for anyone with delayed audio processing, anyone who doesn't feel comfortable interjecting into unstructured discussion and anyone who wants to refresh themselves on what was discussed.

Plus it allows for async followup discussion.

My concern is that some people will feel threatened by the idea of imposing structure into free-wheeling conversations -- but honestly, I trust my colleagues to hear that this is an accessibility issue and at least consider my proposal seriously.

The generic meeting template I shared has room for: who attended, when was it, what's the meeting goal, what's a successful outcome look like, what's the current state, what's the goal state, what's the delta, here's the discussion, here's the follow up meeting, done.

The intention with the discussion area is just to log something like:

Name -- "Maybe we should do X"

But where it gets powerful is if when setting up the document you create space for each name so that everyone has a specific place to contribute in some way.

Now, people who want to have the more verbal meeting can do that, people who want to participate in writing can do that, and people who want to participate in more structured conversation can do that.

The challenge is asking everyone to adapt to this as an intentional shift.

It might be that my company comes back and says "We hear that this is an issue for a few people, but in general our culture needs ad hoc meetings to be unstructured in order to function."

But I'd be surprised.

What I suspect I'll hear is "Hey, I was thinking this too."

Because my mandate at Mode Analytics is to optimize for Developer Experience, and because meeting participation is a part of that experience, I feel an obligation to at least try to address this.

But I am nervous about rocking the boat a bit.

Can I ask, others of you who have addressed this -- how did you do it? I don't want to tell people to just suck it up and deal with things as they are, but also I'm nervous to stick to my guns and ask for structure if there's pushback.

Am I addressing this at the right level?

The cool thing is that it's not the case that these meetings are filled with white dudes who lack self awareness all ranting at each other. It's not like that. It's more like, there's a culture of ad hoc unstructured conversation that some people struggle with.