Transcript: Effective Staff Meetings: Balancing Structure and Flexibility
0:00 Brad If you show up to a meeting and there's literally no agenda at all,
0:02 Brad then you shouldn't have the meeting.
0:21 Brad Welcome to another episode of How Many CTOs Does It Take podcast.
0:24 Brad My name is Brad Hefta-Gaub,
0:25 Brad and this is my co-host, Scott Porad.
0:28 Scott And let's actually go back to the staff meeting for a second.
0:31 Brad Yeah.
0:32 Scott How do you like to run those staff meetings?
0:35 Scott Let's actually prime that pump a little bit.
0:37 Brad Yeah, prime that a little bit. There's so many.
0:38 Brad That's a big question.
0:40 Scott There's a few different approaches I've
0:42 Brad Well,
0:42 Scott used.
0:42 Brad we start by everybody having to do push-ups. That's how we start.
0:46 Brad That what you meant?
0:47 Scott You know, I once worked at a place where, you know, we talked about stand-up.
0:52 Scott We would do plank-up. Let me tell you, when you are doing planks, your stand-up ends really fast.
1:01 Scott You get about 90 seconds, you get through the whole team, what their updates are.
1:09 Scott Okay,
1:10 Scott so...
1:11 Scott Okay, what are the patterns I've seen?
1:13 Scott Okay, I've seen the most common pattern,
1:16 Scott the ball of mud pattern,
1:17 Scott which I would refer to as the ball of mud pattern,
1:19 Scott the most common pattern,
1:20 Scott which is the ad hoc agenda topics, where there's an agenda,
1:23 Scott anybody can throw topics on there, and you just talk about random stuff.
1:27 Scott And sometimes that stuff is really meaningful to the directors,
1:30 Scott and sometimes it feels like it's a giant waste of time.
1:33 Scott That's one pattern.
1:35 Scott another pattern as well called the essentially the stand-up pattern which is it's a status update so each director is like here's what we got going on here's here's what we got going on here's what we're planning on doing here's what we're blocked on right that kind of that kind of step thing um i have seen the more structured rhythm
1:55 Scott um that's structured rhythm obviously but a little bit more structured maybe um once a month or uh on some rhythm you're doing a deep dive like oh in fact this is what i was doing with my last team we did um the week
2:08 Scott so sprints were two weeks so the week after a sprint was over we reviewed the schedule so we looked ahead like what got done at that sprint what's going to happen going forward and then in the off week we did an operations review so how were our how was our not our engineering performance or our systems performance you know time stuff so we just toggled back and forth between those things and then there was some ad hoc topics in addition to those so different
2:32 Scott approaches to it and I'm just wondering and I've never found one I love they
2:37 Brad Yeah.
2:38 Scott all they all they all have something they all lack something and I'm just wondering how you approach it
2:42 Brad I think, well,
2:43 Brad first of all, I think you've got to, it's always going to be situation,
2:47 Brad right?
2:47 Brad So it's always going to be a it depends answer,
2:49 Brad right?
2:50 Brad So what's the stage of the company?
2:52 Brad What are the challenges it's facing?
2:54 Brad What are the, what are the, you know, how,
2:56 Brad you know.
2:59 Brad Do you have, do you manage project coordination via some other meeting?
3:05 Brad So in what I would prefer,
3:09 Brad my general preference would be that the purpose of the staff meeting would be that at my level of VP or CTO,
3:17 Brad you know, my staff is going to be, you know, directors or VPs, right?
3:22 Brad And so at that level,
3:24 Brad you're...
3:26 Brad uh project management i believe should be dashboard driven it should be it should not become a project coordination problem shouldn't be coming like certainly at the sprint level shouldn't be coming to this director's meeting because hopefully we solved that via dashboards and other process etc now it could be that we've got like a
3:51 Brad A big topic that does have multi-group implications that, you know, maybe we've gotten a, you know, maybe we have some kind of a pivot that has to happen or a, you know, a curveball was thrown from the business to that needs to radically change a bunch of our projects, then certainly that would be a good thing to talk about in this staff meeting.
4:15 Brad But I would be avoiding any kind of.
4:17 Brad any kind of project updates and things like that i think that to use your um you know you know kind of the taxonomy that you gave i think i don't necessarily like the ball of mud but i think what well what i've tended to do is like i said pre-published agendas that anyone can anyone can add to so everybody that's coming in the meeting gets to put their agenda item on the agenda and then
4:43 Brad You know, we do some collective adjudication where,
4:47 Brad you know, it's my staff meeting. So like
4:50 Scott Mm
4:50 Brad I'm
4:50 Scott -hmm.
4:50 Brad going to make the call about whether or not we need to how much time we need to spend on that topic based on my perspective of the business import of it.
4:58 Brad So I'm a general like let's get the agenda before we start.
5:03 Brad Let's do a quick agreement on are we going to try to cover these and in what order?
5:08 Brad And then let's try to stick to them and pace it out, right?
5:13 Brad Like, if you show up to a meeting and there's literally no agenda at all,
5:18 Brad then you shouldn't have the meeting,
5:21 Brad right?
5:22 Scott Yeah,
5:23 Scott of course.
5:25 Scott You know, years that are going in my head right now are thinking,
5:28 Scott you know, what is it that I dislike about the open agenda process?
5:33 Scott And I think the part.
5:37 Scott What are the strengths and weaknesses of it?
5:39 Scott Well,
5:39 Scott the strength is it creates an open forum for people to bring whatever they need to bring.
5:44 Scott That's good because you need to have that space.
5:46 Scott The weakness is it doesn't always have a direction. Your organization is trying to head in a direction.
5:54 Scott And as a leadership team,
5:56 Scott you should be trying to move it in that direction.
5:59 Scott And oftentimes the topics that people bring up.
6:02 Scott have nothing really to do with moving in that direction.
6:04 Scott I think I'd like to shape that staff meeting like every week there is some aspect of this meeting where we are talking about how are we moving in the direction that we need to be moving in.
6:14 Brad You know, I would say like if I had a if I had a director that constantly showed up to the staff meeting and was effectively pulling us in a direction that wasn't aligned with the direction we.
6:27 Brad are trying to move the organization in then that's a that's a that's a let's have that conversation with that
6:35 Scott Yeah,
6:35 Brad director
6:35 Scott that's
6:35 Brad yeah
6:36 Scott not what I mean. Let me give an example.
6:37 Scott It's not a real one,
6:39 Scott but, you know, a director puts on the list,
6:41 Scott hey, we're overspending on our Circle CI.
6:45 Scott It's like, okay,
6:46 Scott that doesn't, yes,
6:47 Scott that's a real problem that we need to figure out what to do with, but.
6:52 Scott It's for lack of a description an ordinary problem.
6:55 Brad Yeah.
6:57 Scott It's
6:57 Brad Well,
6:58 Scott not
6:58 Brad I think that's great.
6:59 Brad But wouldn't that be a good example to say, great,
7:01 Brad thank you for bringing it to the staff meeting.
7:03 Brad Everybody that is utilizing the Circle CI,
7:06 Brad you know, what.
7:08 Brad go identify go identify your usage of it and come back to the staff meeting let's set a goal of next month and have a have an action plan i'll let you guys i'll defer to you you guys own it you guys run with it let me know how i can help
7:23 Scott 100%. I think what I want to fit that in to is a context of we are trying to manage to budget.
7:32 Scott Totally.
7:32 Brad Yeah, love it.
7:33 Scott So,
7:34 Brad Yeah.
7:34 Scott you know, when
7:35 Brad So
7:36 Scott it says
7:36 Brad zoom
7:36 Scott appropriate.
7:36 Brad the camera out.
7:37 Scott yeah it needs to be in some context of the things we're trying to accomplish which are we're trying to keep our systems up we're trying to operate within budget we're trying to deliver new software on schedule right so like and we're trying to have our team be engaged and happy and satisfied with their work so those are like the four buckets really i'm just thinking this out loud right now but like that's almost like the context we need to run the staff meeting in which
8:00 Brad Totally.
8:01 Scott is when we create maybe it's even when we create that open agenda there
8:04 Scott that there are four buckets and you can put your item in any bucket but it needs to be under one of these buckets i guess there can be a miscellaneous bucket but if it's miscellaneous then
8:11 Scott i wonder what it would Well, be
8:12 Brad yeah, and I think that like,
8:13 Brad no,
8:14 Brad I like that idea, too.
8:14 Brad Like you could definitely like generally say the goal of this meeting is to cover one of these four pillars.
8:19 Brad Here's my four pillars. Throw your agenda item into one of those. That's great.
8:22 Brad The other thing I would say, though,
8:24 Brad is like I can picture that that person bringing this CircleCI issue to the.
8:29 Brad to the meeting and they could bring it in a way
8:34 Brad where they've already gotten that message about the big themes and they're bringing it in that context.
8:39 Brad Hey,
8:39 Scott Yes.
8:40 Brad folks,
8:40 Brad I know that fiscal responsibility is important,
8:44 Brad uptime is important,
8:45 Brad CICD is a big piece of that.
8:48 Brad I've noticed because in my own personal audit,
8:51 Brad I identify a great audit,
8:52 Brad you're doing personal audits, that's an excellent role.
8:54 Brad And then you have an opportunity to basically go,
8:57 Brad you know.
8:58 Brad Kudos,
8:58 Brad Janet.
8:59 Brad You have demonstrated all the attributes I like. Thank you for bringing it to this.
9:04 Brad Everybody,
9:05 Brad let's please follow up on this and let me know how you want to report back.
9:09 Brad But I'm thinking a month from now, kind of come back with either your proposed solution,
9:13 Brad if you feel I need to adjudicate it,
9:16 Brad or let me know how you're integrating it into your go forward plans once you've come up with that. Right.
9:21 Brad And then you get this opportunity. Right.
9:23 Brad To demonstrate that Janet brought to the table the issue in the important context that it and you might say,
9:31 Brad thank you for bringing that,
9:33 Brad Janet. I would have preferred that you work with, you know, Vanush and Bob and Carl and Carlos already and have you guys could have brought that to me.
9:45 Scott Yeah,
9:45 Brad Right.
9:45 Scott I think the thing that I'm taking from this, I'm actually going to put it in place for my next staff meeting is simply to take that agenda.
9:53 Scott It's just that we just have a Google Doc too.
9:54 Scott And right now it's just a bullet pointed list.
9:57 Scott And I'm just going to make some headings and just say,
9:59 Scott hey, just put your thing under the right bullet.
10:01 Brad Yeah, I love it.
10:02 Scott And then actually maybe start to shift our staffing a little bit like, hey, we are going to actually go through these one by one,
10:06 Scott these section by section.
10:10 Scott and talk about them actually that's the structure of the staff meeting is is there anything we need to talk about in regard to process this week even if there's nothing in the agenda hey i notice there's nothing in the agenda is our process working smoothly awesome great let's move on let's talk about our cost our budget
10:26 Brad Yeah.
10:26 Scott uh you know michelle has got the highest spend here which is we keep on topping up every month what's going on there right so i think that's that's a way
10:36 Scott maybe a way to split the difference between some structure of what we're trying to accomplish with the freedom and liberty of everybody being able to serve for something.
10:45 Brad You want people to bring issues.
10:48 Brad Right.
10:48 Brad You want them to feel comfortable bringing issues.
10:51 Brad So you don't want to like slap them down if they bring an issue that is ordinary to use your term.
10:57 Scott Yeah.
10:58 Brad You want them.
10:59 Brad to feel accountable to make decisions that are aligned with the goals of the company and not feel like they have to get your permission to make a positive difference,
11:12 Brad right?
11:13 Brad And so that to me is always this delicate balance with these staff meetings where it's like,
11:18 Brad look,
11:19 Brad I want you to,
11:20 Brad if you have questions about what our objective here,
11:23 Brad if you have questions about what I would do, great,
11:24 Brad I'm here for that.
11:25 Brad that. But generally speaking,
11:27 Brad I want you to feel like you can run with this stuff and make a difference,
11:30 Brad right?
11:31 Brad And you,
11:32 Brad I also feel like
11:34 Brad they want like the classic there's a group of people that they they do sometimes want to be told what to do you know and hopefully
11:41 Scott Sure.
11:42 Brad at the director level they feel a sense of autonomy where they don't feel like there's very few things that they feel like they need to have you tell them what to do right because they're they're you know they're essentially a you know a part of part of your staff they need to be you know
11:57 Brad autonomous, appropriately.
11:58 Scott There's another little piece I'm trying to address.
12:01 Scott So there are two of these staff meetings each week. There's my engineering staff meeting.
12:08 Scott So that's about 10, let's say 10 people, maybe a few less.
12:13 Scott And then it's eight,
12:16 Scott nine,
12:17 Scott including myself. So and then there is our all product engineering.
12:23 Scott staff meeting which
12:24 Brad Yep.
12:24 Scott is about 22 so it's product management leaders and engineering leaders together and but and there's here's a symptom I'm trying to solve in both of these they both have the sort of ad hoc agenda strategies and in both of them there's a lot of blank looks on the camera it's like why am I here I'm just here to listen to some random stuff that other people brought up and I'm thinking
12:49 Brad Is that more of a problem in your team meeting or in the co-owned meeting?
12:53 Scott owned but really both to some degree it's it's more in the co-owned because the topics sometimes are of more interest to the product managers versus the engineers or vice versa but I haven't seen a ton of topics where it's like both groups are like we're super engaged right like oh this is one that really is
13:13 Scott between both of us um that's beside the point that i think maybe by making a little structure what i'm actually also actually doing is signaling to the attendees this is what we're here about we're
13:26 Brad Yeah, totally.
13:27 Scott not here to discuss random stuff we're actually here to work together on a set of goals um or so right and then i'm hopeful that'll create a different type of engagement
13:38 Scott Um,
13:38 Scott especially if we take an, if I take an approach where every time that those four or five areas I just outlined that you're working on as a leadership team,
13:47 Scott every time we're saying,
13:48 Scott Hey,
13:49 Scott anything in the people department we need to be talking about right now.
13:51 Brad Yeah.
13:52 Scott And there's a structure there for people to then actually start to engage and think about what I should be bringing.
13:57 Scott Yeah. So this is great. That's cool.
13:59 Brad Yeah.
13:59 Scott We got some more today.
14:01 Brad That was another episode of how many CTOs does it take?
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14:16 Brad It's great talking to you again,
14:18 Brad Scott.
14:18 Brad See you next week.
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