This is the second in a series of posts where I cover tips I’ve picked up that have helped me attend, organise and facilitate better meetings. The first post covered attending meetings. This second post will cover organising meetings.
As designers working in a team with others, we know that a fair chunk of our time will be spent with other people – gathering information, generating ideas and debating problems – in forums like meetings, workshops or sprints.
With that in mind, I always think it’s crazy how we spend so much time learning about our design craft, yet when it comes to learning about how to negotiate the often tricky world of meetings, workshops, sprints or even informal catchups with our colleagues, we are often left firmly in the dark, and having to just ‘learn on the job’.
Over the years, I’ve experimented with various ways to plan and track work, but I was never particularly satisfied.
There were always new solutions launching and so I felt like I was constantly on the lookout for the new, perfect way to plan.
At the furthest extremes, design team meetings can often resemble something out of Lord of the Flies where chaos reigns and there is absolutely no plan;
Project Runway, a reality show where fashion designers compete through a series of design challenges to win incredible prizes, might not be at the top of your Must Watch list, but for me, it comes firmly under the ‘Guilty Pleasures’ list.
Aside from its entertainment factor, another reason to tune in is to watch Tim Gunn as the masterful mentor for the beleaguered designers.