When I was a developer, we had a total of 2-3 team meetings a year, and I was pissed about it. I felt those meetings were crucial for us to bond, and I constantly nagged my manager about them.
Fast forward 1 year, and I became the manager.
During my first year, we had a whopping… 3 team meetings 🤦♂️
At first, the excuse was that I needed to adjust to the role, and I didn’t have time to prepare for those meetings.
Then I said that I don’t want a recurring meeting to waste everyone’s time, and I’ll just create those meetings once I have some agenda.
The truth
I was afraid.
Creating a recurring team meeting is scary, especially if the people are not used to having it.
What will I say?
Will I have enough content?
What if they think it’s a waste of time?
What happens if I have nothing ready and I need to cancel?
It was easier to just go on without it.
What changed my mind
During a 1:1 meeting with one of my developers, I shared some interesting business updates. He said that he would really like to hear such updates regularly, and that maybe it will be interesting for the rest of the team too.
I asked: “Do you think a written weekly summary will answer that need? Is it something you think people will read?”.
And he responded: “It might work, but in my previous workplace we had team meetings, where the team leader shared such information, and we all enjoyed it”.
Yep. Irony at its best.
The first thing I did after that meeting was to create a recurring 30-minute team weekly, so I wouldn’t have a chance to chicken out.
7 Ideas for your next team meeting
Review the next project the team will work on. You can talk about how the project fits in the roadmap, why it was chosen, and what you are trying to achieve. It’s not a substitute for a project kickoff, where the conversation is usually more technical.
Go over a post-mortem of an incident that happened recently. Brainstorm together on how to avoid the next one.
Ask a developer to share a project they worked on. It’s a great chance for them to improve their presentation skills, and for the rest of the team to learn something new.
Share interesting projects from other parts of the company. It can be new PoCs with clients, or technical projects other teams work on.
Share Business updates - you know info that they usually don’t. Talk about the sales, the usage metrics, or the plans for the next funding round.
Bring a guest! This is my favorite idea. The last 4 guests I brought:
A Sales representative - before a big project we were about to start working on, the responsible sales representative shared what she knows about that client, and how we got that big project.
The designer - she shared how she works, what is important for her, and what guides her in creating new designs.
The VP Product - he shared his agenda, and how he sees the roadmap and the next 6 months of the company.
Your manager - during a period of some uncertainty, it was good to have him talk with the team in a small forum about various topics. Be creative! You can also bring other team leaders, architects, Support people, CS, or any other role in the organization.
Have fun! You can eat lunch together, or play a short game. If your team is remote, you can try drawize, we enjoyed it :)
In addition to team meetings, I highly suggest a ‘team focus time’ once every few months. It’s a longer meeting outside of the office. Read here on why I think it’s super important.
The evolution of our team meetings
Impressive start
I was ashamed of neglecting those meetings for so long, so at first, I took it very seriously.
There is a shared document, where I wrote in advance the agenda for the meetings. During the next 4 months, I canceled only 2 such meetings (due to vacations).
Slow down
Then, I started to cancel more and more of them, and stopped writing the agenda in advance. The calendar meeting stayed every week, but in reality, we had maybe 2 meetings each month.
Reducing cadence
Finally, a couple of weeks ago (after returning from paternity leave), I decided to change the cadence to once every 2 weeks, and stop fighting with it.
The bottom line
So what’s the ideal cadence and meeting length?
I’m not sure. Once a week was probably too much. I would suggest to start with 30 minutes twice a month, and see how it goes.
I wholeheartedly believe that each team should have team meetings.
The best way to do it is still an open topic for me. I would love to hear about your experience with team meetings, and how you go about them.