TYPES OF DESIGN MEETINGS

Working Design Meeting

You meet with a group of peers to figure out solutions to design problems. You brainstorm ideas, then discuss back and forth to evaluate and modify them. A really good working design meeting is so intellectually stimulating and so much fun that you often spend way more than the allocated time. You leave the meeting excited and charged up.

Informal Design Review

You meet with a colleague who has come up with a design that they want evaluated by more experienced people, or just people that can look at the design with fresh eyes. A really good informal design review gives the designer valuable feedback. The designer leaves the meeting having learned something useful and all fired up to improve their design.

Formal Design Review

You meet with a group of experts at a scheduled time with a well-documented work product. Your company will usually have written procedures governing who must attend a formal design review and how to conduct and document the review. A really good formal design review examines the design carefully enough to spot any weaknesses and ensure the suitability of the design. Everyone leaves the meeting confident that any weaknesses identified will be resolved with the next iteration of the design and that when no weaknesses are identified the design really is suitable.

TIPS FOR LEADING A DESIGN MEETING

Successful and productive design meetings depend on how well the meeting is led. Systems engineers often lead these meetings but are rarely trained how to lead them effectively. Here are some tips that have worked well for me.

✅ Prepare!

Spend time to master the technical information that will be discussed in the meeting. Prepare an agenda, if necessary. Invite only people who are willing and able to contribute to the discussion.

✅ Be a good host!

Make people feel comfortable and welcome. Greet them when they arrive. Treat them with courtesy and respect. Model the behavior you expect from the group. Encourage everyone to express their own opinion. Don’t let people speak for other people. Don’t indulge in sarcasm and ridicule and don’t let other people do so either. Some people will talk too much and will need to be cut off tactfully. Other people will need a little time to ponder and think before they speak and will need to be invited to share their opinion. Make sure everyone has had an opportunity to express their thoughts before coming to a conclusion.

✅ Be humble!

Although you were probably chosen to lead the meeting because of your experience and expertise, the meeting is not about you. Consider the possibility that other people may have ideas that are even better than yours!

And don’t expect to be the perfect meeting leader. Unlike making a design proposal, leading a meeting happens real time with no chance to go back and correct mistakes. When you make mistakes, acknowledge them and move on. You learn by doing and you never do it perfectly.

✅ Cultivate an attitude of detachment.

Your job is to ensure that all points of view are expressed in a respectful way that allows the group to learn from each other and to come to a good decision. Your job is NOT to impose what you think would be the best solution. This can be difficult to achieve if you have strong opinions about the topic being discussed. When I do have a strong opinion, I tell myself that if no one else brings up the point I want to make, I can bring it up after everyone else has had their say. Often someone else in the group will bring up the same point, and usually expresses it better than I would have!

✅ Pay close attention to the content of the discussion.

You must be able to detect when the discussion has gone off track. When the discussion gets stuck, you can summarize the discussion and then point out a way forward. When the group needs to make a decision, you should be able to summarize all the key arguments.

✅ Know when to bring the discussion to a close.

Good design and good decisions can’t be hurried. If the group needs more time or more information, postpone the decision and schedule another meeting. On the other hand, discussions should end when they stop being productive. The group needs to make a good decision, not a perfect one.

LEARNING HOW TO LEAD GOOD MEETINGS

Leading a meeting requires the intellectual ability to understand a technical discussion, to distill arguments to their essence and to synthesize a discussion into a resolution. It also requires social skills to encourage participation, resolve conflict and bring discussion to a close.

Like many high-level soft skills, it is not taught in school. It is hard to measure objectively and is therefore undervalued by management even though unproductive meetings waste a lot of time and money. Management may also neglect this training because it cultivates a collaborative mindset at odds with the hierarchical and authoritarian norms prevalent in the management world. [See post]

I received good training for leading meetings, but not at college and not at any company I ever worked for. Oddly enough, I received it from my church! After I was elected to lead the board of directors of my congregation, I attended a one-week school to train lay leaders. This training included how to run a meeting. I got lots of practice using what I learned during my term of office. I led monthly board meetings, weekly committee meetings and quarterly congregational meetings. I quickly found that what I learned in church was also applicable to my professional life.

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