To ask what your work from home meeting formats are like?

[Maria53]

I posted a year ago when I was going mad due to daily half hour calls every morning. This has gone on for nearly a year & management are now forced to review it because so many people expressed discontent in a feedback form.

While one or two things might be discussed briefly, it has now descended into discussing Netflix, what people has for dinner and alcohol choices. Most people (like myself) find this totally banal most of the time and just want to get on with our work. Others say they like the small talk.

So now they are suggesting keeping an occasional main team call but having a shorter call with our immediate teams instead. Our manager has suggested we all give a daily update on yesterday & our plan for today. To me, this is close to micro management? Plus I rarely have my day forensically planned out first thing.

I dont really like this idea either and now they are asking for suggestions. We suggested making some calls more optional, but they weren't having that.

Twice weekly team meetings of an hour or so each. Fortnightly 121s. Once a fortnight meeting with wider department, one of which is more social, though as several have small children at home the first ten mins of most meetings are usually taken up with someone's three year old doing a show and tell...!

We have a team meeting once a week to discuss work and a daily 15 minute catch up which is optional just to chat about anything, no biggie if you don't join in.

Daily stand-ups / catch ups / meetings sound like performance management to me.

We used to have (I was made redundant) start and end with LM, Weekly one-to-ones (usually two hours) and weekly team catch up plus once every two week Organisational "Town Hall".

Quite frankly if anyone needed to give work to do or know what I was working on they could have just looked at my PM task boards for all the information - I literally just read those out in the meetings.

I personally like on meeting on a Friday morning for a review of the week and priority list for the upcoming week. The earlier the meeting the better as it gives time to finish off loOse ends before the weekend and set priorities for the upcoming week.

We have a weekly team catch up. The first t mins or so is usually a bit of chit chat then we move on to the various work agenda items. None of us seem to mind the chit chat but then we are a friendly social team, I have worked with them for many years and consider many of my colleagues friends.

Team of 4. We have a daily call to discuss what’s on the agenda for the day and to plan it. We may chat what has happened privately, anything interesting was in the news, but we would chat about that at work as well. We also have a constant Skype chat open but for the majority of work we need two people for signing and system release anyway.

Line manager call (different location) once a week to discuss what’s going on in both locations, he is not involved in day-to-day work.

Local manager, every two weeks to see if we have any issues with other departments, workload, difficulties which effect costs and how we are in general. He is a homeschooling dad so always checks with me and another colleague if we are all right and if our children are ok.

For me it fits, I like to chat a bit.

I have never come across the term "daily stand up". Is it just a daily team meeting?

We have a half hour daily meeting at 9.30. Sometimes it lasts 15 minutes, sometimes 45. If all we did was discuss the day's work then end it would be rather joyless.

I think some friendly interaction between team mates is good for morale. It has certainly helped the newer members who joined the team after we started WFH, and it has made them feel welcome and part of the team rather than just a robot at a computer.

I think you are being unreasonable. Normally in the office you'd have small talk, an idea of what everyone is up to, be able to talk through daily plans/any urgent work in person whenever. This is no longer the case.
Some people, as you said enjoy the meetings and some don't. However it is a chance to connect as if you were in the office and talk about work.
It is not micromanaging it is simply the only option

Daily stand-up of no more than 30 mins is a common Agile technique. Usual agenda what I did yesterday/what I'm doing today/any blockers. Works if the whole team is working towards a defined shared goal. It's not optional.

Sounds like micro managing to me. I am an experienced professional. I don't need to waste 30mins each day telling someone what I've done yesterday, or which task I am aiming to do today. My time is better spend actually doing that work.

We have loads of meetings and so much of it is two people (same all the time) asking questions of stuff that was covered 3 seconds before that they weren’t listening too. It drives me absolutely fucking demented.

I have never come across the term "daily stand up". Is it just a daily team meeting?

Basically, yes @Ginfordinner. I think it's called a stand up because it's meant to be quick and you don't need to sit down and get comfy in a meeting room! In the office we would literally all stand around a projector screen.

I have:

Daily call with team across the UK - we work in media related roles so it's currently fast moving - 30 minutes
I send a Monday - this is what I've on this week to my team and they do the same (small team)
1.5-2 hour weekly meeting of management team - mostly a waste of time
Weekly call with team for chit chat - 30 mins
There's a bigger team chit chat call every week / two weeks but I never go I hate chitchat

Stand up is a web development thing where there are generally a lot of interdependencies so you need to know if someone has done their bit so you can do yours.

I must say I'm quite glad I just get left to get on with my job. No different than before covid. There is a fortnightly team meeting, although that often ends up being monthly as we are too busy.

Daily meetings are not limited to IT teams they are the basis of good operational management.

Allows capacity to be discussed, work to be moved around if needed, communication around who is out/anything else relevant and chance for anyone to raise any immediate problems that will stop work happening today

If it’s being viewed as micro managing then that’s down to the manager not being effective as if done right it is as far away from micro managing as it can be

How is wasting 30mins a day (2.5 hours every week) detailing to someone else exactly what I've done and am about to do, be a worthwhile use of my time ?

If I'm stuck with something, I am fully able to pick up the phone or send an e-mail to whoever it is that can help resolve that.

2 weekly team meeting for us, thats enough for me.

It may not work in your particular role @BackforGood but for mine it's really useful.

We don't have any
We get a daily email which is "this is where we are up to, this is what we are working on, please do X/Y/Z, and happy birthday to A" type thing
Anything else is communicated via an email update so "site has closed due to blah blah, will update ASAP"

We have a Monday stand-up to set out the priorities for the week, discuss scheduling, and getting a rough theme of everything. Each of my team members is involved in every project in some way, so it's all relevant to everyone.

That's the only meeting we have each week -- all the rest is done via Slack.

We have a call on a Monday morning primarily to make sure we are all okay, mainly chat with any work issues as required. Usually takes about an hour for the 6 of us. Seems to be about right. We phone each other as required the rest of the week but we don't all get together any other time.

If it’s being viewed as micro managing then that’s down to the manager not being effective as if done right it is as far away from micro managing as it can be

I agree. I don't feel micromanaged in the least.

Oh God. I sympathise. The new idea does sound loads better. Try writing a to-do list for the next day as the last thing you do before logging off. Everyone reels theirs off and you're done. Hopefully.

We have weekly 'wellbeing' catch ups which usually not everyone can get to (other meetings clashing etc). Every fourth meeting is more of an official team meeting which expected everyone will try harder to be at. We also chat all day in the Teams chat function about work and anything else, which I find pleasant.
Daily meetings would be a pain in the arse.

We have a 30 min weekly team meeting of around 20 people in the unit where we get key updates from organisation and each state our priorities for the week.

We also have an optional 30 min slot 3 mornings a week for the division (around 60 people). People drop in as and when they feel like a chat and this is not work focussed, more general chat

Then we have an optional stand up for the directorate of around 200 people where we get key messages from across the organisation.

And then lots of project specific meetings and a 30 mins 1:1 each with my line manager and direct reports.

We have a full team meeting and a project specific meeting each week, for 30 minutes. We have to attend these. There are also two 'coffee break' meetings in the calendar every week for social chat. These are optional. I never join these as I'm not really interested in social chit chat* and it's usually the same people monopolising the conversation anyway.

*I do chat with some colleagues but it's when it happens naturally as part of a one to one conversation. It's the, 'how is everyone? Has anyone watched anything good on TV lately?' stuff that makes me cringe.

15 minute team scrum/stand-up is pretty common. Format usually, from each team member, brief 1 minute update of work complete, blockers to completing work, and next tasks.