22 Minute Meeting

After reading a post by several leaders I follow on Twitter, I decided to have a 22 Minute Meeting:  See below:

You can also read about it here:  http://scottberkun.com/2010/the-22-minute-meeting/

You might be wondering why I scheduled a 22 minute meeting?  The easy answer is time.  There are so many scheduled meetings that last 1, 2, or even 3 hours that I just needed this meeting to make an informed decision.  I decided that since there was a clear agenda (1 real item) it was a good time to break out this protocol.

We met last Friday in one of our conference rooms.  In attendance were 4 elementary principals, an ELA supervisor, three instructional specialists and myself.  I sent the agenda to the group 2 days before the meeting, including the protocol (22 minute meeting rules).  I also sent links to resources that might be useful in helping each member recommend a decision at this meeting.

We began the meeting on time.  There are too many meetings that I attend that start late for one reason or another.  My time is as valuable as anyone else's so I wanted to respect that and began the meeting promptly at 12:30.  Actually, one member of the group reminded me to start the meeting on time at 12:29...while we were waiting for one member to arrive.  So, we began the meeting on time, and without one member, who arrived 1 minute later.

We kept to the agenda...lay out the issue, open dialogue about the problem, make recommendations for next steps.  At one point, the conversation went off topic and was suddenly pointed out and set back on track.  For the rest of the 22 minute meeting, we respectfully listened to each other as I took notes.  Actually in all honesty, the meeting was 30 minutes, but not because we took long; I decided to make it 30 at the onset.  At the end of the meeting, I restated what we decided and the meeting was adjourned.

The next morning, I sent an e-mail to the group thanking them on the brief, but productive meeting and identified our agreed upon points.

While we could have made this meeting 60 minutes or longer, the 22 minute protocol required that we cut out the parts of our meeting that were extraneous.   This included off topic dialogue and tangents that brought us to places we didn't intend to go.  The meeting had the most important elements of any good meeting:

1.  Focused Agenda
2.  Protocol to follow
3.  Clear outcomes
4.  We all left the meeting knowing what we accomplished.

I just wish all our meeting could be that brief and productive.

I do want to express that not all meetings are this neat.  Some meetings, especially ones in education are difficult because they require that we think outside the box and often outside of our comfort level.  We often ask each other thought provoking questions that take time to process and explore.  Meetings like this are as essential to our work as the 22 minute meeting.