Try Stand Up Meetings

October 2 by | 13 comments | Management | Tags:
Try Stand Up Meetings

Probably the biggest issue with workplace meetings is their length. Almost always, meetings take longer than is necessary. This is particularly true for those daily keep-us-up-to-date meetings.

You could try killing meetings all together, or try what John Trosko suggests and hold the meetings that aren’t long and strategic with everyone standing up.

Instead of sitting at a traditional conference table, we took the chairs out of the room and ran meetings while standing on our feet. Well, the length of the meetings DRASTICALLY dropped, because people didn’t want to stand for long. Meetings went from 30-60 minutes to roughly 1/2 of that while still delivering meaty content. Neat, huh?

When I worked in an office briefly, I noticed this was how they held those meetings – and it really worked.

Anyone else seen this work? Would you suggest it?

Stand Up Meetings – Lose the Chairs and Save Time – [OrganizingLA]

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  • Randall Drum

    I agree that stand-up meetings are a VERY effective tool. Depending upon your business culture and needs, you might consider daily stand-ups with your team. As an IT project manager, I conduct daily stand-ups with my project teams that are held in the morning and last no more than 10 minutes. This prevents us from having weekly “follow-up” meetings, because we know each day where we’ve been, where we are and where we are going. Try reading this article my Martin Fowler for more info: http://martinfowler.com/articles/itsNotJustStandingUp.html

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  • http://www.yosemitereservations.info Jim

    It has to be all or none. I usually try to stand up at the meetings at my office and people cant handle it and get very nervous and cant focus.
    Of course that may be a good thing

  • http://markdykeman.wordpress.com/ Mark Dykeman

    I must admit that I don’t have much experience with stand-up meetings, but I’m tempted to try it for status meetings. I agree with the author that more strategic “thinking” meetings may not work so well, as some of us aren’t so good at “thinking on our feet”.

  • http://www.organizingla.com John Trosko

    Hi Craig,

    Thank you for the mention of my post. This scenario DID happen, and it WAS successful. When you have the time, say an hour, you seem to fill it. When you don’t, you’d be surprised how much you accomplish.

    Case in point: a few years ago I moved. I hadn’t called soon enough to have my internet set up. I had to wait at least a few days for this to happen. I went without e-mail for three days and just couldn’t stand it anymore– oh, the pain! I went to a local libary and borrowed their computer. But GASP, they only allowed people to “surf the ‘net” for a maxiumum of EIGHT minutes!!! How I did it, I never knew. But I did. And it proved to me that you the important things will push through no matter what. A lot of meetings are just excuses to have a catered breakfast and enjoy friends (or have spirited debates.) I think stand-up meetings are the pow-wows of the future. People will adapt, and they will have time to get back to their desks and actually do work instead of sitting in meetings all day.

    - John

  • http://www.coffeeandcelluloid.com Joey

    I think meetings should be avoided if possible, but I’ve found standing up keeps things moving.

    Here’s a short video with some meeting tips, including standing up during meetings:

    http://www.cubiclesfilm.com/2007/10/01/meetings-cubicles-survival-guide/

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